Rare Disease Day (RDD) campaign aims to improve the quality of life for patients with rare / refractory diseases by better diagnosis and treatment. The activities started in 2008 originating from Sweden.
In Japan, RDD events are held nationwide on the last day of February and this annual campaign has been running from 2010. The theme of RDD 2018 in Japan is “Connecting power (TSUNAGARU-CHIKARA in Japanese）~Take Action Now! ~”
There are over 7,000 types of rare diseases, but it often takes about 5 years on average until the correct diagnosis due to unfamiliarity of those rare diseases, where patients typically change hospitals at least seven times until the diagnosis. In addition, challenges lie in solving the stagnated development of rare disease treatment and endurance that rare disease patients suffer due to the lack of understanding by surrounding people.
As CMIC group, we proactively undertake efforts for rare diseases, pursuant to our commitment “We respect every individual’s drive to live fully in the moment” enshrined as one of the concepts of “CMIC’s CREED”.
For RDD campaign in 2018, in addition to sponsoring events, CMIC will internally publicize February as the month of RDD campaign, involving activities such as raising awareness through putting in-house posters, seminar event for listening to direct voices from rare disease patient and educating employees through a dedicated site on the intranet for enhancing the knowledge of rare diseases. We are working to create a system where employees can make donations easily.
During this campaign, every CMIC members are encouraged to wear the RDD official pin badge and hand out the CMIC group’s original RDD pocket-sized tissue packages to clients, business partners, family members and friends for RDD activity promotion. We expect the “Connecting power (TSUNAGARU-CHIKARA)” will be a bigger activity.
Through these activities, CMIC Group will help more people deepen their understanding for the area of rare and refractory diseases. We are hoping to realize a society in which patients affected by rare diseases and their supporters feel reassured about treatment availability in their lives.
We publish the RDD supporting messages on the website of Orphan Pacific, Inc., from Shuichi Watanabe, president of MEDIPAL HOLDINGS CORPORATION and from Kazuo Nakamura, CEO of the CMIC Group. https://www.orphanpacific.com/en/news/20180201/17/
