Novo Nordisk, healthcare company which is a world leader in diabetes care, has organised an awareness campaign in the UAE to mark the World Diabetes Day (November 14).

The UAE is a key focus area for Novo Nordisk’s campaign as the country has one of the world’s highest prevalence of diabetes, afflicting 19.5 per cent of people in the 20 to 79 age group as of 2007 and the figure is expected to increase to 21.9 per cent by 2025 according to a report from the UAE Ministry of Health.

Novo Nordisk further revealed that it has raised huge balloons above two hospitals in Dubai to mark the occasion and to highlight the company’s strong commitment to help control the spread of diabetes in the country, a statement from the company said .

“Novo Nordisk is firmly committed to defeating diabetes and we are confident that by working closely with our partners in the government and private sectors, we can overcome this disease in our lifetime. The UAE is a particularly important focus area for our fight against diabetes because of the high incidence of diabetes in the country,” said Mads Bo Larsen, vice president for Novo Nordisk's Africa, Arabian Gulf and India offices.

“According to statistics from the UAE Ministry of Health, one out of five persons in the country suffers from diabetes and we believe that this figure will continue to rise if we don’t take immediate action. We believe that we can reverse this trend and make a huge difference in helping people overcome this debilitating disease by inspiring hope and delivering real solutions that fit the lifestyle of people in the UAE and across the region,” Bo Larsen said.

To support its fight against diabetes, the company invests in excess of 500 million Euros annually in R&D expenditure, the statement said.

It employs more than 30,000 employees worldwide with more than 3,500 people working on R&D in a number of areas, including basic and discovery research, preclinical and clinical development, production and delivery of drug substance, regulatory, quality, licensing, patenting, bioethics and other areas.

Novo Nordisk also has a leading position within other areas such as haemostasis management, growth hormone therapy and hormone replacement therapy, it said.

Headquartered in Denmark, the company has more than 85 years of experience in diabetes care, offering one of the broadest portfolios of diabetes products in the industry, including long and rapid-acting modern insulins (insulin analogues), a premixed range of both long and short-acting insulin, and a prandial glucose regulator for Type 2 diabetes.

Novo Nordisk also offers an extensive range of user-friendly delivery systems for self-administration of insulin, the statement said.

As part of its long-term commitment to prevent and treat diabetes, it launched the World Diabetes Foundation (WDF) in 2001 to provide education, healthcare infrastructure, drug procurement and distribution, and ongoing monitoring and mentoring of patients, it said.

The WDF, which is an independent non-profit organisation, has supported 182 projects to date, impacting 66 million people in 83 developing countries. – TradeArabia News Service