Santen Announces Corporate Volunteer Partnership with Be My Eyes
—Santen Employees Worldwide will Respond to Calls from Blind and Low-Vision Users on World Sight Day (October 10)—

October 9, 2024, Osaka, Japan – Santen Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd. (head office: Osaka; hereinafter Santen) announced today a corporate volunteer partnership with Be My Eyes, the access technology provider for people who are blind or have low vision, in celebration of World Sight Day (October 10).* Be My Eyes provides a free application that uses video calls to provide assistance from sighted volunteers to people who are blind or have low vision. This corporate volunteer partnership will see Santen employees in about 40 countries or regions responding to video calls from Be My Eyes users who are blind or have low-vision via the Be My Eyes app on October 10. Any Santen employee anywhere in the world can volunteer from 8 a.m. to 9 p.m. that day.

Santen is the first Japanese company to form a corporate volunteer partnership with Be My Eyes; World Sight Day 2024 marks the second year of the initiative. Last year, Santen employees answered approximately 800 calls in 22 different languages. A post-implementation survey indicated that satisfaction rates for both users and volunteers exceeded 95%. With many volunteers sharing positive comments such as “I want to do this again next year” and “I want more of my colleagues to know about this initiative,” Santen decided to continue the program this year.

When a blind or low-vision user requests assistance through the Be My Eyes app, Be My Eyes matches the person in need with a sighted volunteer based on language and time of day. The app will send notifications to multiple volunteers. The first volunteer to respond to the request is connected to the caller and the caller receives live video assistance directly through their smartphone camera.

“Among the apps that support people who are blind or have low-vision, I think there is no smarter solution than Be My Eyes because it benefits both the supporter and the supported,” said Mohamed Abdin, who leads the partnership for Santen and is also visually impaired. “As of this month, Be My Eyes has approximately 700,000 blind and low-vision users and 7,800,000 registered volunteers worldwide, so if a need arises for visual assistance, users can count on being able to request support through the app 24 hours a day. At a time when many companies face the issue of not being able to attract participants for volunteer programs due to restrictions on the number of people, geography, and time, this form of volunteerism is revolutionary in that it allows anyone to participate from anywhere and at any time simply by having a smartphone.”

“We are proud to be once again partnering with Santen, on World Sight Day 2024, to provide volunteer support for our blind and low vision community,” said Mike Buckley, Be My Eyes CEO. “Santen being a leading global provider of ophthalmic pharmaceuticals, our partnership is perhaps an obvious one. However, through Be My Eyes’ Corporate Volunteering days, the ability for any and all employees to directly assist someone who needs a little assistance is a powerful and strong statement of Santen’s values.”

As a company specialized in eye health, Santen’s goal is to “realize an inclusive society where everyone can live in harmony irrespective of disability.” Through this corporate volunteer initiative, we hope to contribute to improving the quality of life of people who are blind or have low vision and to strengthen our corporate culture by providing many Santen employees the experience of thinking and acting in a people-centric manner. Santen employees will continue to challenge themselves while bringing together diverse strengths to reduce the social and economic losses caused by eye problems and work toward the realization of “Happiness with Vision.”

About Be My Eyes
Launched in 2015, Be My Eyes is a globally recognized and award-winning access technology provider for people who are blind or have low vision. With a global community of 700,000 users, and 7.8 million volunteers, Be My Eyes connects blind and low-vision users with sighted volunteers and companies, through live video and AI to tackle inaccessible parts of everyday life, whether at home or at work; all for free to the end user. Be My Eyes is available in more than 150 countries worldwide and its volunteers speak more than 180 languages.
Learn more about Be My Eyes here: https://www.bemyeyes.com

About Santen
As a specialized company dedicated to eye health, Santen aspires to contribute to the realization of “Happiness with Vision” by providing products and services to patients, consumers, and medical professionals around the world. Since its establishment, and guided by its CORE PRINCIPLE, “Tenki ni sanyo suru,” Santen has been committed to helping people maintain and improve their eye health for more than 130 years. Santen is engaged in the global research and development, manufacturing, and sales and marketing of pharmaceutical products in the field of eye care, supporting the eye health of approximately 50 million people in more than 60 countries and regions worldwide. Santen’s mission is to provide essential and significant value to patients and society in the prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of eye diseases through products and services created from its expertise in the ophthalmology field and from the patient's perspective. To create a future in which as many patients as possible can lead happy and fulfilling lives, Santen is committed to doing its utmost to realize a society in which people around the world can experience “Happiness with Vision.”
For more information, please visit Santen’s website https://www.santen.com/en.

Contact
Corporate Communications
Santen Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd.
E-mail: communication@santen.com