Awareness & Proactive Care toward Better Eye Condition

Santen aims to reduce the loss of social and economic opportunities for people around the world due to eye conditions by raising public awareness of the importance of a better eye condition and promoting eye care.

Wellness as One of the Three Material Strategies

Tackling the Global Burden of Myopia through a Strategic Alliance with Plano

Activities to Prevent Vision Loss due to Glaucoma

Campaigns to Raise Public Awareness of Dry Eye Syndrome

Wellness as One of the Three Material Strategies

Santen's materiality framework comprises three strategies and four areas of ESG materiality. In the strategy of Wellness, one of our three strategies (Ophthalmology, Wellness, and Inclusion), we will raise awareness and proactive care toward better eye condition.

Recently, public awareness of health issues is rising, and there is increasing vibrancy in the healthcare industry with efforts to prevent disease onset and criticality, and also due to deregulation in various surrounding industries. However, there is still insufficient public awareness of the importance of eye health and associated issues including the development of critical cases as a result of the delayed detection of eye disease onset and the chronic incidence of eye conditions that are not properly recognized as actual diseases.

Santen believes that it is important to encourage the public to recognize and understand the importance of vision and eye health in our daily lives. Santen also facilitates early detection of eye disease and pursuit of better eye condition according to the life stage of people, by using digital technology, providing products and services that help maintain and improve eye health, and predicting and visualizing risks to eye health.

Tackling the Global Burden of Myopia through a Strategic Alliance with Plano

Santen entered into a strategic alliance with Plano Pte. Ltd (hereinafter, "Plano") to tackle the global burden of myopia in June 2020. Plano, an eye health tech startup, is widely recognized as one of the world leaders in public awareness-raising and education on the prevention and risks of myopia.

Through Plano, Santen is promoting education and prevention efforts to protect children's eyes from myopia in Singapore, and is beginning to roll out this innovative solution in China and Asia.

Santen is working closely with Plano to resolve social issues related to myopia and to improve the quality of life of the patients around the world.

Activities to Prevent Vision Loss due to Glaucoma

Introducing a glaucoma treatment continuation program

Glaucoma is the leading cause of vision loss in Japan. One of the challenges concerning glaucoma is that many patients with this almost symptomless disease discontinue their medical treatment. As an initiative to encourage glaucoma patients to continue to receive medical treatment, Santen has developed ACT Pack®, a glaucoma treatment adherence program. This program has so far been provided to and utilized by more than 1,800 medical institutions. A report(*) says that the introduction of ACT Pack® increased the six-month adherence rate from 42.1% to 94.2%.

Report on an increase in the six-month adherence rate from a level before the introduction of 42.1% to 94.2%: Tanaka, Toshihiro et al. (2020), Ganka, 62 (8): 801-807

Offering support for awareness-raising activities for early detection

The World Glaucoma Association and the World Glaucoma Patients Association play leading roles in performing various knowledge-sharing activities around the world for one week in March designated as the World Glaucoma Week (WGW), aiming to build public awareness of glaucoma. Santen cosponsors worldwide activities for raising awareness of glaucoma. In 2022, although the impact of COVID-19 continues, , Santen supported the following activities in Asia, Europe, Japan and others, in collaboration with ophthalmologists from glaucoma societies in various countries, for early detection of glaucoma.

Japan, Asia: "Light-up in Green!" events associated with Glaucoma, provision of information about WGW activities via social media, and holding online seminars.
China: Series of online broadcasts of programs featuring leading ophthalmologists in the country to provide information on eye diseases
Europe: Released a podcast "All Eyes On(*): World Glaucoma Week Special"
U.S.: Awareness-raising activities via social media

All Eyes On: a podcast series developed by Santen EMEA in collaboration with key stakeholders from across the business as well as valued partners in the community. The series, which is for healthcare professionals, patients, their loved ones and patient advocacy groups, aims to explore key issues related to ophthalmology, vision and total wellbeing with the ophthalmology community.

The ferris wheel illuminated in green in Kobe City

As a global activity not targeting any specific regions, Santen has been releasing a new version of the Glaucoma Vision Simulation app to inspire many more people, including ordinary people, medical professionals, patients, and their caretakers to deepen their understanding of glaucoma.

The Glaucoma Vision Simulation app is available for download from;

Campaigns to Raise Public Awareness of Dry Eye Syndrome

Dry eye is a modern-day disease whose concept was introduced to Japan around 1985. The number of potential patients with dry eye disease is estimated at 8 to 22 million in Japan. Of those only around 2 million are estimated to receive treatment prescribed by a doctor. The Santen Group aims to contribute to as many dry eye syndrome patients as possible by providing potential dry eye patients with the opportunities to accurately know and understand the disease and encouraging them to consult eye doctors and receive ophthalmic treatment. To accomplish the aim, we have continued to run campaigns to raise public awareness of dry eye syndrome, by sharing a wide range of information, and other means.

- Efforts to Address Untreated Patients

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