DAVOS, Switzerland, Jan. 27, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — At the 2026 World Economic Forum Annual Meeting in Davos, Dr. Giovanni Caforio, Chairman of the Board of Directors of Novartis, announced a major new partnership: the Novartis Foundation, the Ministry of Health of Brunei Darussalam, and EVYD Technology will jointly implement an AI- and data-enabled national cardiovascular disease prevention initiative under the global program: CARDIO4Cities.
Built on Brunei’s national health platform, the program aims to harness population-scale data and artificial intelligence to enable early identification of high-risk individuals and deliver targeted interventions, ultimately reducing cardiovascular disease burden and strengthening national heart health outcomes.
This landmark collaboration, recognized for both its public health impact and innovation potential, has been prominently featured by the World Economic Forum.
Advancing Public Health Through AI and Cross-Sector Collaboration
The initiative was highlighted during the Davos session “Innovating for Social Impact at Scale Through Partnerships and Artificial Intelligence,” co-hosted by the Novartis Foundation, Novo Nordisk and the World Heart Federation.
Mrs. Gong Yingying, Founder and Chairlady of Yidu Tech, speaks with Mr. Marnix van Ginneken, Chairman of the Philips Foundation, during a Davos dialogue on the future of AI-enabled public health
During the discussion, Mrs. Gong Yingying, Founder and Chairlady of Yidu Tech, joined Mr. Marnix van Ginneken, Chairman of the Philips Foundation, in a dialogue on digital health innovation and the future of resilient public health systems. The conversation was moderated by Dr. Ann Aerts, Head of the Novartis Foundation.
Mrs. Gong noted that advancing high-quality public health is fundamentally a systems-level endeavor — one that depends on whether technological innovation and cross-sector collaboration can be translated into scalable, self-reinforcing capabilities over time. She emphasized that the launch of CARDIO4Cities in Brunei represents a strategically significant national-level deployment.
Its ambition extends well beyond the implementation of a single program. Rather, it is designed to drive a structural transformation of the public health system: shifting from reactive response to proactive prediction, from fragmented services to integrated governance, and from experience-based approaches to precision management grounded in real-world data.
Addressing a Global Non-Communicable Disease Challenge
Cardiovascular disease and other non-communicable diseases remain the leading cause of death worldwide, accounting for more than 70% of global mortality. In Brunei, cardiovascular disease is also the primary cause of death, placing sustained pressure on the country’s healthcare system.
Globally, many countries continue to face common structural barriers — including fragmented data infrastructure, limited monitoring capacity, and insufficient population-level risk stratification — making precise prevention difficult to implement at scale.
Through this partnership, Brunei will leverage to establish AI-driven cardiovascular risk tiering across the population and deliver differentiated intervention pathways, shifting prevention efforts upstream.
“A truly resilient system,” said Mrs. Gong, “must act before risks fully emerge. This is the national value of data- and intelligence-driven health governance.”
EVYD’s Platform Foundation and Value for Life Sciences
The AI capabilities underpinning Brunei’s CARDIO4Cities program are rooted in EVYD’s broader technology foundation — designed to deliver population-scale intelligence while also enabling end-to-end value creation for pharmaceutical and life sciences partners globally.
Powered by EVYD’s proprietary AI engine and extensive real-world evidence infrastructure, the platform supports drug developers across the R&D lifecycle, including:
- AI-enabled precision patient identification and recruitment
- intelligent clinical trial data quality monitoring
- accelerated execution with improved cost efficiency
- generation of high-quality real-world evidence to support regulatory submissions and payer access
BruHealth: From Pandemic Response to a National Digital Health Backbone
Mrs. Gong also highlighted the evolution of BruHealth, Brunei’s national digital health platform.
Initially established to support infectious disease tracking and resource coordination during the pandemic, BruHealth has since grown into a comprehensive national infrastructure integrating:
- government oversight and policy execution
- physician-facing clinical workstations
- citizen-centered digital health services
Today, residents can access longitudinal health records, receive AI-generated personalized health guidance, schedule care appointments, and monitor key wellness indicators directly through the platform.
BruHealth now covers more than 85% of Brunei’s population, serving as the digital backbone of the country’s universal health ecosystem. EVYD will provide core data integration, analytics, and implementation support to ensure CARDIO4Cities is operationalized at national scale.
A Globally Scalable Model for Cardiometabolic Risk Reduction
Brunei becomes the first country to expand CARDIO4Cities at national scale across four major cardiovascular risk factors: hypertension, diabetes, obesity and hyperlipidemia.
Globally, CARDIO4Cities — initiated by the Novartis Foundation — has been deployed across more than 40 cities including São Paulo, Dakar and Ulaanbaatar. Results have shown that within 15–21 months, blood pressure control rates can improve by 3–6x, with stroke incidence reduced by up to 13% and heart attack rates reduced by up to 12%.
Setting a New Benchmark for National AI-Enabled Disease Prevention
This trilateral collaboration delivers a next-generation solution for cardiovascular disease prevention in Brunei, while also offering a scalable reference model for non-communicable disease control worldwide.
As the initiative advances, it is expected to further strengthen Brunei’s public health capacity, reduce long-term disease burden, and contribute new momentum to the global transformation toward intelligent, prevention-oriented health systems.
