The UK-China Health and Economy Partnership is a long-term partnership designed to support sustainable collaboration between the universities of Fudan, Shandong, Bournemouth, York and East Anglia. The project, which will run for two years, is a platform to support key Chinese and UK universities in changing the ways in which they share pharmacoeconomics knowledge. The partnership was officially launched in Jinan, China on 26 November 2017.
Based on the principle of two-way knowledge transfer between China and the UK, the partnership begun with a week-long series of workshops based at Shandong University. Experts from the five partner universities examined how scarce healthcare resources may be spent for the benefit of Chinese patients. They explored ways to meet local needs through the innovation of pharmacoeconomics thinking and techniques. Through the development of a long-term knowledge collaboration, the UK and Chinese universities will promote improvements in patient health and the economic choice of cost-effective medicines.
Dr. Ding Xu, Vice President, Head of Communications & Government Affairs, GSK China said: “GSK through its Global Health Programmes is committed to strengthening healthcare systems and in doing so to improve patient access to quality medicines. Pharmacoeconomics, academic exchange and collaboration will offer the Chinese healthcare decision makers and healthcare professionals capabilities to better utilize scientific evidence to support evaluation and adoption of cost-effective medicines that could benefit more Chinese patients”.
Jazreel Goh, Director Education and Sport China at the British Council, said: “we are delighted to see Bournemouth University leading a consortium of universities from the UK and China to further collaboration in the field of pharmacoeconomics. At a time when China is undergoing reforms to boost the scale and capacity of its healthcare sector, the UK-China Health and Economy Partnership will make a significant contribution towards patient health. In doing so, this partnership will represent a new highlight in the UK-China bilateral relationship and we are pleased that the British Council’s UK-China Partnership Innovation Challenge Fund supported its establishment, with substantial support coming from GSK”.
Prof Sun Qiang from Shandong University said, “The UK-China Health and Economic Partnership sets up a good and unique platform for the pharmacoeconomic development in China, and a comprehensive mechanism will be considered and established to keep the sustainability of the Partnership in the next step”.
Professor Darrin Baines, Bournemouth University, said "The UK-China Health and Economy Partnership represents a real opportunity for Chinese and British universities to work in collaboration for the benefit of patients and economic growth".