Delhi State Cancer Institute and Merck Specialities sign MoU to accelerate access to cancer care

Delhi State Cancer Institute (DSCI) and Merck Specialities have entered into an MoU to accelerate access to cancer care treatment.

With an aim to create definitive public health impact and reduce the burden of head and neck cancer and colorectal cancer, the partnership through multiple interventions, aims to improve disease awareness, knowledge upgradation, capability enhancement to support early diagnosis and patient counselling provision.

DSCI along with Merck will drive community outreach awareness campaigns and related Initiatives such as anti-tobacco campaigns, market activation around head and neck cancer and colorectal cancer, and educating people regarding the signs and symptoms and their associated complications by spreading the outreach in the identified district of East Delhi to increase the overall awareness within the community.

Commenting on this development, Dr Kishore Singh, Director, DSCI, said, “DSCI has been nominated by the Delhi government to serve as a ‘role model’ for healthcare by amalgamating the academic skills of the universities, clinical acumen of the super-specialists, research skills of the international institutions, managerial skills of the corporate world and technology development skills of the industry. The Centre of excellence currently receives patients from Delhi and its adjoining states to avail free diagnosis and treatment. Through this MoU with Merck we aim to improve the accessibility of cancer treatment to patients and reduce the cancer gap that is evident across but specifically in and around Delhi. This partnership also contributes towards our goal of improved treatment of our patients via early detection of the disease.”

“The mission of cancer prevention and early detection cannot be fulfilled till the awareness about it reaches the community. With this aim in mind we intend to use this relationship to spread the knowledge about cancer – prevention, screening, early detection, complete and proper treatment and the possibility of cure for cancer patients to the masses. The diagnosis of cancer is not a death sentence and it canbe cured if detected early and given adequate and timely treatment,” said Dr Pragya Shukla, HOD, Clinical oncology, DSCI.

Under this initiative, Merck will organise multiple patient screening health check-up camps at the DSCI campus for essential oral examination of the patients. Under this MoU, a patient counselling kiosk has also been set up at DSCI.

As part of this collaboration, Merck will organise medical symposiums and educational training programs to upgrade the clinical knowledge of DSCI HCPs and senior residents’ doctors on the recent advancement of treatment and updates on guidelines for H&N and Oral Cancers.

Commenting on this development, Pratima Reddy, MD, Merck Specialities, said, “At Merck, our mission is to create, prolong and improve lives of patients. The rising number of Head & Neck cancer cases in India and globally is alarming, so joining forces with DSCI is a natural progression of what we do. There are several access projects that we are working on and public private partnerships such as these are really the way to reach and impact as many patients as possible. Aligning with the universal health agenda, through this partnership with DSCI, we hope to see enhanced awareness, increased number of early diagnosis that will definitely help with improving patients’ lives.”