Access to healthcare

Working towards a future where all people have access to sustainable healthcare solutions for life changing treatment and prevention

Highlights

81,000+

healthcare workers trained

16+ million

people reached through our portfolio of access programmes (HHA, Healthy Lung & Phakamisa, cumulative)

9.7+ million

people reached though our Patient Assistance Programmes

7

Health Innovation Hubs in emerging markets

$801+ million

of medicines donated by Patient Assistance Programmes

4+ million

youth reached through our Young Health Programme

Our approach to Access to healthcare

Access to healthcare at AstraZeneca goes beyond our medicines. We provide healthcare solutions along a journey to improve health - from prevention and awareness, diagnosis, treatment, to post-treatment. 


We are working towards a future where all people have access to sustainable healthcare solutions for life-changing treatment and prevention. We will do this by:

  • Innovating - to deliver life-changing medicine
  • Partnering - to improve access and affordability
  • Transforming - for the future of healthcare


Health is key to a thriving society. Healthcare is our core business and at the heart of all we do. The mission of our company is to “push the boundaries of science to deliver life-changing medicines.” How do we do this?

  • We help to ensure that our medicines get to people who need them by investing in health systems around the world.
  • We are making changes to address affordability to help ensure our medicines are accessible
  • We seek to expand disease prevention and treatment whenever possible, through screenings, awareness programmes and training healthcare professionals.

Our Access to healthcare focus areas include:

Disease prevention and treatment, Responsible R&D, Investments in health systems, Environment’s impact on Health and Affordability.

Our Access to healthcare approach supports the following Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

Our stories

Disease prevention and treatment | A step on our journey to eliminate cancer

We have a bold ambition to eliminate lung cancer as a cause of death. We know we cannot do this alone, so we joined the Lung Ambition Alliance to find the best possible solutions for patients. The objective of the Alliance is to double the five-year survival rate for lung cancer patients.

Investment in health systems | Cancer screening in India

AstraZeneca India, in partnership with the Indian Cancer Society and Charities Aid Foundation India, launched an early cancer screening programme in 2019. The target populations are women who reside in slums and resettlement areas and workers in certain industries. The programme aims to increase awareness and reduce the stigma associated with cancer.

Responsible R&D | Health Innovation Hubs in emerging markets

Our Health Innovation Hubs bring employees together to reimagine how we can improve patient outcomes. The vision is to create and strengthen partnerships to accelerate innovation, increase access to healthcare and improve outcomes for society. We have seven hubs in emerging markets - Russia, Brazil, Taiwan, Argentina, China, India and Hong Kong.

Investments in Health Systems I Healthy Heart Africa reaches more people

AstraZeneca has over a century of experience in treating cardiovascular diseases and an extensive portfolio of anti-hypertensives. AstraZeneca’s Healthy Heart Africa (HHA) is an innovative programme committed to tackling hypertension and the increasing burden of cardiovascular disease (CVD) across Africa.

Environment’s Impact on Health | Health is Everyone’s Business

This cross-industry initiative is led by the UN Global Compact. It focuses on SDG 3 – Good Health and Wellbeing. An outcome of our participation is the publication “Business Leadership" Brief for Healthy Planet, Healthy People.” This includes case studies that showcase our work on the connection between a healthy planet and healthier people.

Responsible R&D | Accelerating access to infants

We participate in the European Medicine Agency’s (EMA) PRIority MEdicines (PRIME) scheme, which supports developers of promising medicines to accelerate evaluation and expedite patient access. We are developing a medicine to treat respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), a virus that 90% of infants are infected with in the first two years of life.

Affordability | Supporting patient access through Innovative Value Strategies

We want to ensure the prices paid for our medicines reflect the actual health benefits patients are receiving. A medicine may or may not be effective for every patient, and through Innovative Value Strategies we are building new models to make ourselves accountable and ensure patients are truly benefiting from our products.

Read more about Access to healthcare in our Sustainability Report.

To view our policies, standards and positions, visit our Resources page
 

Early access to AstraZeneca investigational medicinal products

We recognise that there are circumstances where patients with serious or life-threatening diseases have exhausted all available therapeutic options and may not be eligible to enrol in one of our clinical trials. In such circumstances individual patients may be eligible for early access to an AstraZeneca investigational medicinal product.