HONG KONG, China and Danvers, Massachusetts U.S.A. - Dignity Health International Pacific Linkage Ltd. (DHI Pacific) and Aurora Healthcare US Corp (Aurora) are pleased to announce the signing of a landmark collaboration memorandum that leverages the shared interests and diverse expertise of the two companies to develop comprehensive breast cancer centers of excellence in China.

 

Breast cancer surpassed lung cancer in 2020 as the most frequently diagnosed cancer in the world with 2.3 million newly diagnosed cases and more than 650,000 deaths annually.

The two companies share a goal focused on developing Cancer Centers of Excellence which include the delivery of comprehensive, compassionate and holistic breast cancer care combined with the advancement of cancer research and clinical application. Ultimately, the two companies seek to improve the prognosis of breast cancer patients and enhance women’s health and wellbeing.

 

DHI Pacific and Aurora also share a common vision and passion to bring their extensive expertise in cancer care to Asia, where most of the world’s cancer incidence now occurs and grows at an alarming rate. In the case of breast cancer, Asia alone accounts for more than half of both newly diagnosed cases and deaths, making it one of the biggest health problems to overcome. In 2013, Aurora donated its dedicated mobile breast MRI system to St. Mary’s Hospital in Taitung, Taiwan to be used as a front-line breast cancer screening modality and resulted in greatly reduced mortality rates of Taitung women.

 

“We are humbled by the opportunity to leverage our decades of cancer care experience to benefit people in Asia and are enthusiastic about the partnership with Aurora to help breast cancer patients.” Stated by Gregg Davis, Senior Vice President of Dignity Health International (DHI). Echoed by Richard Yeung, Managing Director of DHI Pacific, the joint venture representing DHI in greater China, “After 30 years of economic reform and high-speed development, China has become the second largest economy in the world. But the country and its people also paid a heavy price for such an achievement including rapid increase in cancer cases which claimed 3 million lives and an incidence of 4.57 million new cancer cases in 2020, according to WHO’s International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC). We are on a mission-driven path to work with partners like Aurora to help bring healing and compassionate care to patients in the greater China area”.

 

“We are honored to be joining DHI’s legendary journey to extend holistic and precision healthcare and medical service across Europe and the U.S. to Asia. We are combining our decades’ long innovation experience in technology development, clinical application, bedside and bench-side team approach to improve prognoses and quality care for cancer patients and their families” said Olivia Cheng, CEO of Aurora.

 

About Dignity Health International Pacific Linkage

DHI Pacific, a Hong Kong company, is a joint venture between Dignity Health International (DHI) and Pacific Linkage Enterprise Ltd. (Pacific Linkage). DHI is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Dignity Health Holding Company and an affiliate of CommonSpirit Health (CommonSpirit) which was formed in 2019 by the alignment of Catholic Health Initiatives (CHI) and Dignity Health. Today, CommonSpirit is one of the largest not-for-profit health systems in the U.S., with more than 1,000 care sites, 140 hospitals and over 25,000 care providers. DHI’s purpose is to expand CommonSpirit Health’s mission globally by leveraging the organization’s knowledge, expertise, and resources to improve the health of communities around the world.

 

About Aurora Healthcare US Corp

Aurora Healthcare US Corp. (“Aurora”), a privately held company based in Massachusetts, USA, manufactures the only MRI system dedicated to breast imaging for screening and diagnostic indications. The integration of Aurora’s multiple innovations in hardware and software result in MRI studies with higher resolution and fewer artifacts and anatomic distortions that are typical of general-use MRI. The Aurora Breast Clinic (ABC) embeds Aurora’s technological leadership at the core of a comprehensive diagnostic and survivorship care system.

 

Building on its U.S. foundation and after recent China FDA clearance, Aurora is expanding into greater China from its base of operations in Chengdu, Sichuan, where it is operating a successful ABC and has introduced the first mobile breast MRI screening clinic in China.