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Brain Breakthroughs: our engagement against stigmatization

Brain Breakthroughs: our engagement against stigmatization

Neurosciences are now one of the biggest challenges within scientific research. More than 3.7 million people in Europe suffer from schizophrenia (1) and a quarter of the people above sixty years old is facing Alzheimer’s (2). By 2030, depression would even be the number one cause of disease burden worldwide (3). These complaints still severely disrupt the lives of the people who suffer from them and of those around them. This is not only due to the complexity of these illnesses, but also due to the stigma which still surrounds mental health issues in our society. We at Janssen want to counteract that stigma. With Brain Breakthroughs Janssen wants to raise awareness and fight against stigmatisation. .

Our mission in neurosciences: Brain Breakthroughs

We also want to continue our intense commitment to neuroscientific research and continue to look for breakthrough innovations which will help people with a mental disability to reclaim control over their lives. Janssen puts the focus here on:

  • Preventing Alzheimer’s disease at an early stage

  • Improving treatment and care for schizophrenia patients

  • Innovations for severe depressions where standard medication doesn’t work

  • Breaking through the stigma which still surrounds mental health complaints

Those are the Brain Breakthroughs for which our neuroscientists strive every day.

Innovation, co-operation, and understanding are key words.

Together we are strong in the fight against mental health complaints. That applies not only to patients and those around them, but also to Janssen. To enable us to develop the best and most innovative treatments, we work together closely with universities, biotechnological companies, and other pharmaceutical companies

“We continue to look for breakthrough innovations that put people with a mental illness back in control of their lives.”

We want to achieve that not only by means of medical innovations, but also and equally by openly supporting patients and their care workers, by listening to them, by ‘educating’ them on their complaint, and encouraging others to do the same. ‘We want to reach a point where mental health patients are looked upon in the same way as people with a physical complaint,’ says Husseini Manji, global theraputic Area Head. This is the only way to create a better understanding of mental health complaints. By breaking through the chain of stigmatisation in this way, patients will be much more willing to look for the right treatment. We’ve already found this in our fight against cancer and HIV.

Footnotes:
1 Disease Lens. R&D Data. Available at www.diseaselens.com/v2/disease.php?disease=10# (last accessed February 2016).
2 Disease Lens. R&D Data. Available at ww.diseaselens.com/v2/disease.php?disease=8# (last accessed February 2016).
3 World Health Organization. Global burden of mental disorders and the need for a comprehensive, coordinated response from health and social sectors at the country level. Available at apps.who.int/gb/ebwha/pdf_files/EB130/B130_9-en.pdf (last accessed February 2016).