Pictured: Ryan Quigley, Chief Operating Officer, Inizio
This week is World Immunization Week, which seeks to protect more people from vaccine-preventable diseases. Working towards that goal is Inizio, a healthcare and life sciences company that supports the delivery of vaccines to children across the globe through its partnership with UNICEF.
Developing a new drug is a hugely complex task that takes many years of hard work and hundreds of millions of dollars of investment. It is a journey full of challenging, pivotal moments that determine the commercial success or otherwise of a treatment – and the impact that has on patients’ lives.
Helping pharma companies navigate that journey is Inizio. Formed in 2022 following the merger of Ashfield and Huntsworth, Inizio is the first truly integrated pharma commercialization platform that is market-leading in terms of depth, breadth and expertise across the services, capabilities, and lifecycle stages of commercialization. Inizio’s services span the entire medical product lifecycle and include strategic consultancy, medical communications, brand development, events, marketing, disease education and even nurses who treat patients.
Inizio has more than 10,000 employees operating in 50 countries, and in the last two years alone, the organisation has played a role in half of all pharma product launches and counts all top 20 pharma companies as clients*.
“We work primarily for pharmaceutical and life sciences companies, and everything we do is firmly focused on patients and helping more medicines get to the people who need them,” said Ryan Quigley, Chief Operating Officer. “One of the most urgent issues the world faces today is health inequity, which occurs when certain groups have less access to medicines and care, and face higher rates of diseases and disability. These people are typically defined by characteristics such as age, race, gender and their economic circumstances.
“As a company – as people – health equity is something we are very passionate about, and it is the ‘red thread’ running through our sustainability strategy and our client projects. In fact, we are in the process of developing a holistic approach to help clients consider health equity at each phase of the patient journey. It is also one of the main reasons we chose to support UNICEF as a partner,” said Dervala Leahy, Head of ESG at Inizio.
Inizio has been working with the UN agency focused on the rights of the child since 2022, contributing to its Health Thematic Fund, providing greater access to vaccines protecting children from life-threatening disease.
“One of the many negative impacts of the Covid pandemic was a huge reduction in routine childhood immunization for diseases such as measles,” adds Peter Power, Executive Director of UNICEF Ireland. “In 2021, 18.2m children did not receive even a single vaccine dose, compared to 13.3m in 2019.
“The impact of immunization is far-reaching. Not only does it prevent tens of millions of deaths, but it also helps many children avoid poverty and has a financial benefit, too. Every dollar spent on vaccination delivers a return on investment of US$26.”
Each year UNICEF supplies almost three billion vaccines and Inizio is extremely proud to support UNICEF in this work towards achieving greater health equity.