With Lacy Hubbard, President of the Elekta Foundation.

1.Tell us more about Elekta’s sustainability agenda, of which the Elekta Foundation is an essential part.

Elekta’s vision is a world where everyone has access to the best cancer care. That is why our sustainability agenda is set on improving access to healthcare globally while operating a responsible and sustainable business. Today, cancer prevalence and mortality are significantly higher in low- and middle-income countries and this is something we want to change. By expanding our reach in low- and middle-income countries we aim to grow our business in underserved markets while achieving significant positive contribution to sustainable development globally. The Elekta Foundation constitutes a core part in achieving this ambition.

Working towards increasing access to healthcare for all is the guiding star for us as a responsible and sustainable company. In Elekta’s sustainability agenda, this work is represented by the focus area Access to Healthcare. In our efforts to enable Access to Healthcare, Elekta as a company and everyone working for us must behave responsibly and sustainably in every dimension: ethically, environmentally and socially.  

These dimensions are represented by the focus areas Business Ethics, Green Processes and People in Focus that provide the agenda’s foundation. These are preconditions for a truly sustainable business and enable us to improve access to healthcare. 

•Green Processes covers our efforts to minimize our environmental footprint and advance more sustainable production processes.

•Business Ethics is about making sure we embody the ethical business standards we set for ourselves. We live our values in everything we do. The focus area comprises our compliance and integrity programs which are instrumental in ensuring that we conduct business responsibly, no matter the challenges in specific markets. 

•Besides ensuring health and safety and employee satisfaction, our focus area People in Focus includes focus on having a diverse workforce and inclusive environment and warranting respect for international human- and labor rights.

For more information, please visit Sustainability (elekta.com) 

2.What is the guiding principle of the Elekta Foundation?

The Foundation’s guiding principles could be defined as collaboration and partnership, innovation and creativity, and impact measurement (this is a work in progress).

3.Why did you initially focus on African countries?

With African countries’ success in battling communicable diseases and continuously strengthening their healthcare infrastructure, people are living longer and non-communicable diseases, such as cancer, are on the rise. Morbidity related to cancer will continue to increase, while morbidity related to other diseases will decrease if these countries continue on the same path.

Much of the work performed by NGOs in these countries is still linked to communicable diseases but there is a need for work done within the field of non-communicable diseases a well. For example, there is a link between communicable diseases and cancer which is seldom highlighted. An HIV patient has a five-fold higher risk of developing an HPV infection and developing cervical cancer. In this case, it is important to address the fact that we need to be better at including cervical cancer in existing programs and raising the discussion around cancer as a public health problem even in many countries in Africa. Cervical cancer has an unproportionally high morbidity in several African countries, though it is a cancer we can successfully treat. This is also one of the reasons why the Foundation has decided to focus on cervical cancer in African countries.

There is a gap in the entire care-continuum in everything from public health education, screening, diagnosis, and treatment to palliative care. Radiation therapy is one example within the area of cancer treatment. According to The Lancet, more than 50% of cancer patients would benefit from radiation therapy in their treatment plan. Today, half of African countries lack access to radiation therapy entirely and 50% of available radiation therapy equipment is located in two countries, demonstrating the large gap in access to treatment.

As a small foundation recently launched, we decided to focus our first efforts on Kenya, Rwanda and Senegal. Countries where we feel that we can make a difference and develop a sustainable working method and model that we hope we can successfully bring to other countries.

4.Do you think that there is a large knowledge gap in many countries about advanced treatment systems and cancer care? How are you going to deal with this gap?

Yes, unfortunately we have found a huge knowledge gap in underserved markets.  Some hospitals have state-of-art equipment, but don’t have required knowledge to use what they have; some hospitals have staff, but have little or no training, which leads to mistreatment or no treatment. Therefore, education will be one of our focus areas. Our continuing education programs will help to upskill clinicians such as radiation oncologists and medical physicists. Our certification programs will develop the workforce, such as medical physicists and radiation therapists, to implement radiotherapy in greenfield markets.

5.What are the ways that the Foundation will use to scale up cancer care infrastructure in developing countries?

We plan to develop new models and tools in this area. For example, in underserved regions, we often see there is only a single radiation therapy center with a few clinicians in an entire region. Every day, many doctors make treatment decisions with limited knowledge. The Foundation can develop a new business model to enable experienced radiotherapy clinicians around the world to provide services such as second opinions, remote support, etc. through digital platforms. Consequently, we will not only increase throughput, but also improve the quality of cancer care to patients in underserved markets.

6.Are you planning to collaborate with NGOs and local governments to develop awareness on cancer care?

Yes, we have already engaged the Kenya, Rwanda and Senegal embassies in Stockholm to discuss how to collaborate with their ministries of health.  We are looking for partnerships with NGOs that also focus on Africa, particularly in cervical cancer. It’s well known that the odds of surviving cancer increase with early screening, early detection and early treatment. We would like to bring our treatment knowledge to create an end-to-end solution for this leading cause of cancer death in many African countries.

7.What is the change that the Elekta Foundation is trying to make? Are you looking for a real difference?

Our mission is to improve cancer care access in underserved regions and communities. We want to help to create a world where everyone has access to the best cancer care, a world where everyone dealing with cancer has reason to hope. We want to invite all of you to join us.  Together, we can make a real difference.

For more information, please visit the Elekta Foundation website (www.elektafoundation.com).

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About Elekta

As a leader in precision radiation therapy, Elekta is committed to ensuring every patient has access to the best cancer care possible. We openly collaborate with customers to advance sustainable, outcome-driven and cost-efficient solutions to meet evolving patient needs, improve lives and bring hope to everyone dealing with cancer. To us, it's personal, and our global team of 4,700 employees combine passion, science, and imagination to profoundly change cancer care. We don’t just build technology, we build hope. Elekta is headquartered in Stockholm, Sweden, with offices in more than 120 countries and listed on Nasdaq Stockholm. For more information, visit elekta.com or follow @Elekta on Twitter.

For further information, please contact:

Mattias Thorsson, Vice President, Head of Corporate Communications

Tel: +46 70 865 8012, e-mail: Mattias.Thorsson@elekta.com  

Time zone: CET: Central European Time

Raven Canzeri, Global Director, Media Relations

Tel: +1 770-670-2524, e-mail: Raven.Canzeri@elekta.com 

Time zone: ET: Eastern Time