Bangkok, Thailand, June 25, 2014 – The market study by Rubicon Strategy Group provides an extensive market overview based on on-the-ground surveys and interviews with business leaders, consumers and customers (pharmacies, drugstores, hospitals and doctors). Part of Rubicon's ‘Asia Market Series’, it is the first publication that uncovers the opportunities for healthcare companies to expand to Myanmar. The country opening up and the ASEAN Economic Community becoming reality in 2015 are expected to spur growth for healthcare companies and Market Expansion Services providers in Myanmar. According to Rubicon’s study, consumer spending on over-the-counter healthcare products is anticipated to grow three-to-four-times in size, from about USD 140 million in 2013 to USD 480 million by 2020. The research further shows that the medical devices market in Myanmar is anticipated to grow threefold by 2020. Meanwhile, eight out of ten ofMyanmar’s consumers are willing to spend more on healthcare products and services if they have access to better options. The strong overall market growth is partly driven by the vast increase in government spending on pharmaceuticals and medical devices. Specialty products, in particular cardiovascular, diabetes and oncology products are expected to experience high growth rates for the next years. Challenges to enter the Myanmar healthcare market however remain. Comparing the healthcare systems worldwide, Myanmar was recently ranked 190th and last by the World Health Organization (WHO). Rubicon’s study confirms that collaborating with a local distribution partner is the only viable means of efficiently accessing the market in Myanmar. This is due to Myanmar’s opaque regulatory environment, the abundance of counterfeit products, complex channels to market and the extremely fragmented point of sale network. Dr. Varun Sethi, DKSH's General Manager, Business Unit Healthcare in Myanmar, said: “With the opening of Asia’s economy, Myanmar offers great potential for healthcare companies. Companies intending to expand in Myanmar should look for an experienced partner with the knowledge and connections to reach a broad range of channels and consumers. With our 15 years of experience in Myanmar and almost 150 years in Asia, DKSH is well-positioned to help companies explore the opportunities in Myanmar.” The study results are captured in the 115-page Myanmar healthcare report, which provides an extensive market overview and insights for healthcare companies exploring opportunities in the country. The full report is available online on Health Intel Asia. About Rubicon Strategy Group Rubicon Strategy Group is a boutique consulting firm specialized in market access work for emerging economies in the healthcare, biotech and senior care industries. Rubicon has a focus on China and has completed research and market access projects in the pharmaceutical, private hospital, senior housing and home healthcare sectors in China. About DKSH DKSH is the leading Market Expansion Services provider with a focus on Asia. As the term "Market Expansion Services" suggests, DKSH helps other companies and brands to grow their business in new or existing markets. Publicly listed on the SIX Swiss Exchange since March 2012, DKSH is a global company headquartered in Zurich. With 735 business locations in 35 countries – 710 of them in Asia – and 26,700 specialized staff, DKSH generated net sales of CHF 9.6 billion in 2013. DKSH Business Unit Healthcare is the leading Market Expansion Services provider for healthcare companies seeking to grow their business in Asia. Custom-made offerings comprise registration and market entry studies as well as importation, customs clearance, marketing and sales to physical distribution, invoicing and cash collection. Products available through DKSH Healthcare include ethical pharmaceuticals, consumer health, over-the-counter (OTC), as well as medical devices. With 150 business locations in 14 countries and around 9,050 specialized staff, Business Unit Healthcare serves over 160,000 customers and generated net sales of around CHF 4.3 billion in 2013.

The annual Journal of the International Institute for Law and Medicine examines legal issues relating to health care, medicinal products, intellectual property rights in pharmaceuticals, and liability in North America, Latin America, Europe, Africa, and Asia.

This critical ethnographic account of the Yangon deaf community in Myanmar offers unique insights into the dynamics of a vibrant linguistic and cultural minority community in the region and also sheds further light on broader questions around language policy. The book examines language policies on different scales, demonstrating how unofficial policies in the local deaf school and wider Yangon deaf community impact responses to higher level interventions, namely the 2007 government policy aimed at unifying the country’s two sign languages. Foote highlights the need for a critical and interdisciplinary approach to the study of language policy, unpacking the interplay between language ideologies, power relations, political and moral interests and community conceptualisations of citizenship. The study’s findings are situated within wider theoretical debates within linguistic anthropology, questioning existing paradigms on the notion of linguistic authenticity and contributing to ongoing debates on the relationship between language policy and social justice. Offering an important new contribution to critical work on language policy, the book will be of particular interest to students and scholars in sociolinguistics, linguistic anthropology and language education.

The country’s location within the region and population of more than 50m will help it achieve growth, with international analysts predicting Myanmar’s economy to be worth up to $200bn by 2030. With elections set to take place in late 2015, the world is eagerly watching to see how things will unfold. After spending decades as one of the most isolated and least-developed countries in Asia, Myanmar is emerging as one of the world’s fastest-growing economies. Agriculture, manufacturing and mining are some of Myanmar’s top contributors to GDP, which was forecast to reach 8.5% in FY2014/15 and FY2015/16. While foreign investment is accelerating, there are ways in which it remains blocked. As the country continues to reintegrate with the global economy, continued reforms as well as the opening of more economic sectors to foreign investors will help unlock the country’s potential.

How does the need to obtain and deliver health services engender particular (im)mobility forms? And how is mobility experienced and imagined when it is required for healthcare access or delivery? Guided by these questions, Healthcare in Motion explores the dynamic interrelationship between mobility and healthcare, drawing on case studies from across the world and shedding light on the day-to-day practices of patients and professionals.

The era of globalization allows for more connectivity between nations and cultures. This increase in international association gives citizens the ability to take advantage of opportunities in other nations, such as medical assistance and accompanying services. Medical Tourism: Breakthroughs in Research and Practice is a comprehensive reference source for the latest scholarly material on trends, practices, and emerging phenomena of international travel by patients for medical treatment and examines the benefits and challenges of these services. Highlighting a range of pertinent topics such as hospitality management, reproductive medicine, and ethical considerations, this multi-volume book is ideally designed for the needs of healthcare providers, nonprofit organizations, students, and medical professionals seeking relevant research on the relationship between global travel and access to healthcare.

Between 2007 and the end of 2016, 24 countries implemented a total of 25 national tuberculosis prevalence surveys using methods recommended by WHO. The 25 surveys consisted of 13 in Asia and 12 in Africa. Collectively, survey findings have informed the policies, plans and programmatic actions needed to address gaps in TB diagnosis and treatment and to reduce the burden of TB disease. Finally, the 24 countries have a robust baseline for assessing progress towards new global targets set in the UN Sustainable Development Goals (2016–2030) and WHO’s End TB Strategy (2016–2035). The methods, results, successes achieved, challenges faced and lessons learned from the 25 surveys were comprehensively documented in the book. We viewed such a product as a global public good, that should be available to all those with an interest in and commitment to using survey findings, now and in the future e.g. academics, donors, public health officers and national TB programmes. As with implementation of the 25 surveys themselves, the book is the result of a major global, regional and national collaborative and collective effort, with more than 450 contributors from all around the world.

In recent years trade and investment in Myanmar have soared, buoyed by ongoing efforts to liberalise the economy and a successful political transition in November 2015 that saw the National League for Democracy become the country’s first civilian-led government elected to power in modern history. Political reforms have brought significant economic benefits, as the US government moved to lift burdensome sanctions that had weighed on investor sentiment and trade growth. With the administration now moving to implement a host of domestic reforms, loosen internal trade restrictions and draft a new investment law, growth is expected to resume apace following a slowdown during the election year.

“This book focuses on the different challenges and opportunities for social transformation in India, Myanmar and Thailand, by centering communities and individuals as the main drivers of change. In doing so, it includes discussions on a wide array of issues including women’s empowerment and political participation, ethno-religious tensions, plurilingualism, education reform, community-based healthcare, climate change, disaster management, ecological systems, and vulnerability reduction. Two core foundations are introduced for ensuring broader transformations. The first is the academic diplomacy project – a framework for an engaged academic enquiry focusing on causative, curative, transformative, and promotive factors. The second is a community driven collective struggle that serves as a grassroots possibility to facilitate positive social transformation by using locally available resources and enabling the participation of the resident population. As a whole, the book conveys the importance of a diversification of engagement at the grassroots level to strengthen the capacity of individuals as decisive stakeholders, where the process of social transformation makes communities more interconnected, interdependent, multicultural and vital in building an inclusive society.”