AstraZeneca Promotes New COPD Countermeasures Aimed at Extending Healthy Life Expectancy in Koriyama City

AstraZeneca K.K. (Headquarters: Kita-ku, Osaka; President: Takafumi Horii; hereinafter "AstraZeneca"), in collaboration with Koriyama City, Fukushima Prefecture (Mayor: Takeo Shiine; hereinafter "Koriyama City"), held a "COPD Countermeasures Collaboration Kick-off Seminar" on March 27, 2026, for regional healthcare professionals to promote new measures against COPD (Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease) aimed at extending healthy life expectancy. This seminar was conducted as part of the "Partnership Agreement on the Promotion of Health Promotion for Koriyama Citizens," concluded in July 2025. It brought together diverse stakeholders from industry, government, and academia with the goal of establishing a regional medical system to extend healthy life expectancy through the promotion of early detection and early treatment of COPD.

While the estimated number of COPD patients in Japan is approximately 5.3 million (1), the number of patients receiving treatment is only about 382,000 (2), suggesting that approximately 5 million people are potential patients who remain unexamined and undiagnosed. In 2023, the number of deaths due to COPD reached approximately 16,000 (3). The "Health Japan 21 (Third Term)" initiative, promoted by the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare, has set a new numerical target to reduce the COPD mortality rate per 100,000 population to 10.0 by fiscal year 2032. Furthermore, it is known that COPD exacerbations can affect cardiovascular events such as chronic heart failure (4). Therefore, establishing a system that leads to early consultation, diagnosis, and treatment of COPD is extremely important for Koriyama City as well. Although Koriyama City has previously positioned COPD as a priority health issue, the limited number of respiratory specialty medical institutions has made building a patient acceptance system a challenge.

[Image Caption: From left: Tanaka, Executive Officer and Head of Medical, AstraZeneca K.K.; Hattori, Head of Policy and Business Strategy, AstraZeneca K.K.; Tsuboi, Chairman of the Koriyama Medical Association; Shiine, Mayor of Koriyama; Shibata, Professor and Chair of the Department of Respiratory Medicine, Fukushima Medical University; Fukui, Director of Mominoki Clinic; Yamaguchi, Manager of the Health Promotion Division, Koriyama City Public Health Center (titles omitted)]

The new COPD countermeasures shared at the seminar are centered on region-led efforts to facilitate early consultation, diagnosis, and treatment. Koriyama City, the Koriyama Medical Association, primary care clinics, respiratory specialty institutions, academia, and private companies will work together to advance these initiatives. Koriyama City will provide individual notifications to encourage medical check-ups for high-risk COPD groups, including residents currently receiving treatment for other diseases such as heart disease. Regarding diagnosis, the city will list medical institutions capable of initial diagnosis as "Cooperating Medical Institutions" based on the "COPD-F Protocol," a diagnostic tool unique to Fukushima Prefecture, thereby establishing a regional framework for accepting COPD patients.

Through this, the flow of referrals and reverse referrals between primary care physicians, cooperating medical institutions, and regional respiratory specialty facilities will be clarified. After diagnosis, appropriate treatment interventions in line with guidelines will be provided, leading to continuous management across the entire region, including coordination with the cardiovascular field, to suppress exacerbations and extend healthy life expectancy. Furthermore, with an eye toward utilizing medical DX (Digital Transformation), the effectiveness of these measures will be verified using indicators such as consultation rates, diagnosis rates, treatment introduction rates, exacerbations/hospitalizations, and medical costs, with continuous improvements based on the PDCA cycle. Through these efforts, the goal is to visualize the results as a sustainable and reproducible regional model from Koriyama City, and to provide evidence that contributes to nationwide expansion and national policy formation.

COPD Countermeasures Statement Aimed at Extending Healthy Life Expectancy in Koriyama City At the seminar, in addition to discussing the necessity of COPD countermeasures and specific challenges and initiatives in Koriyama City, the "Koriyama City COPD Countermeasures Statement" was announced, which organizes the future direction through industry-government-academia collaboration. This statement outlines the basic approach toward building a sustainable and innovative regional model to realize further health promotion and extension of healthy life expectancy for Koriyama citizens.

The statement confirms that the following four items will be prioritized:

1. Epidemiological Redefinition of COPD and Data Enrichment Relevant organizations will collaborate to promote clear disease definitions based on scientific evidence and the development of regional data infrastructure to properly grasp the reality of COPD.

2. Promotion of Hospital-Clinic Collaboration and Multi-professional Cooperation We will promote the introduction of simple COPD diagnostic support tools and strengthen collaboration between hospitals and clinics to realize early diagnosis and early intervention. Additionally, considering the insufficiency of COPD management in cases of comorbidities with cardiovascular disease, we will establish a comprehensive patient care system that includes multi-departmental collaboration and nursing care.

3. Realization of Sustainable Regional Healthcare through Medical DX We aim to build a sustainable medical delivery system by incorporating new methods such as primary screening utilizing medical DX, including PHR (Personal Health Record) and EHR (Electronic Health Record).

4. Contribution to National Policy through EBPM We will proceed with the accumulation of evidence to utilize the results of this project for national policy formation (EBPM: Evidence-Based Policy Making). Through these efforts, we aim to clarify indicators regarding efficiency and cost-effectiveness in addition to medical outcome indicators.

This statement aims to create a future of sustainable regional healthcare that realizes the extension of healthy life expectancy and the improvement of patients' QOL (Quality of Life) through cooperation, scientific approaches, and co-creation among stakeholders.

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About Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) COPD is a progressive disease that causes shortness of breath and physical exhaustion due to airflow obstruction in the lungs (5). Improving lung function, reducing exacerbations, and managing daily symptoms such as shortness of breath are important treatment goals for COPD (5). When COPD worsens, it can lead to significant decline in lung function (6), a substantial decrease in quality of life (6), a significant shortening of life expectancy, and an increased risk of death (7, 8).

In the "Health Japan 21 (Third Term)" starting from fiscal year 2024, a new target has been set to reduce the mortality rate per 100,000 population from the current value of 13.3 (2021) to the target value of 10.0 (fiscal year 2032).

About AstraZeneca AstraZeneca is a science-led global biopharmaceutical company that focuses on the discovery, development, manufacturing, and marketing of prescription medicines, primarily in the biopharmaceutical areas of Oncology, Rare Diseases, Cardiovascular, Renal and Metabolism, and Respiratory & Immunology. Based in Cambridge, UK, our innovative medicines are sold in over 125 countries and used by many patients around the world. For more information, please visit https://www.astrazeneca.com or follow us on social media @AstraZeneca.

In Japan, we are active in contributing to the health of patients and the development of medicine, with a focus on Oncology, Cardiovascular, Renal and Metabolism, Respiratory & Immunology, and Vaccines & Immune Therapies. For more information about AstraZeneca K.K., please visit https://www.astrazeneca.co.jp/. Please also follow AstraZeneca's Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube.