logo
Afya Limited Releases 2024 Sustainability Report

Afya Limited Releases 2024 Sustainability Report

Yahoo22-07-2025
BELO HORIZONTE, Brazil, July 22, 2025--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Afya Limited (Nasdaq: AFYA; B3: A2FY34) ("Afya" or the "Company"), the leading medical education group and medical practice solutions provider in Brazil, announces the release of its 2024 Sustainability Report.
The document, which presents Afya's trajectory throughout 2024, follows the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) standards and is aligned with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). It also reports specific indicators from the Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB) and elements of the International Integrated Reporting Council (IIRC). The sustainability report contains some of the results of the fifth Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Emissions Inventory. Both of which have undergone individual audits by KPMG. The report is divided into two publications a narrative document and a technical annex in Excel format, which addresses all GRI and SASB indicators.
Afya's 2024 Sustainability Report is available at: https://ir.afya.com.br/annual-report/
About Afya Limited (Nasdaq: AFYA, B3: A2FY34)
Afya is a leading medical education group in Brazil based on the number of medical school seats, delivering an end-to-end physician-centric ecosystem that serves and empowers students and physicians to transform their ambitions into rewarding lifelong experiences from the moment they join us as medical students through their medical residency preparation, graduation program, continuing medical education activities and offering medical practice solutions to help doctors enhance their healthcare services through their whole career.
View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20250721441017/en/
Contacts
Investor Relations Contact:Afya Limitedir@afya.com.br
Orange background

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Comments

No comments yet...

Related Articles

Meet The Biotech Startup Challenging Ozempic With A Fat-Burning Pill That Lets You Keep Eating
Meet The Biotech Startup Challenging Ozempic With A Fat-Burning Pill That Lets You Keep Eating

Yahoo

timean hour ago

  • Yahoo

Meet The Biotech Startup Challenging Ozempic With A Fat-Burning Pill That Lets You Keep Eating

Imagine shedding weight while sitting quietly watching TV, even without cutting calories. A pioneering pill called SANA, created by Uruguayan startup Eolo Pharma, could one day make that possible. Early human data in a statement by Eolo Pharma shows it can burn fat even at rest, without appetite suppression or serious side effects. That breakthrough could reshape global obesity treatment. Biotech Startup Pioneers First-in-Class Therapies to Treat Obesity and Metabolic Disease Eolo Pharma is a clinical-stage biotechnology company focused on pioneering therapies for obesity and metabolic diseases. The company says it develops first-in-class small-molecule drugs that activate the body's own energy-burning pathways rather than relying on appetite suppression. Its lead candidate, SANA, is the first compound shown to safely activate creatine-dependent thermogenesis in humans, offering a novel approach to resetting metabolic health. Don't Miss: Accredited Investors: Grab Pre-IPO Shares of the AI Company Powering Hasbro, Sephora & MGM— 'Scrolling To UBI' — Deloitte's #1 fastest-growing software company allows users to earn money on their phones. You can Headquartered in Delaware with strong scientific roots in South America, Eolo Pharma is a spin-off of the Institut Pasteur de Montevideo, a non-profit foundation that promotes scientific and technological research. The company says it is backed by more than a decade of research into metabolic disorders and cardiometabolic complications. Eolo Pharma's proprietary library of 60 novel chemical entities includes molecules designed to address high-burden, non-communicable diseases such as obesity, type 2 diabetes, non-alcoholic steatohepatitis, hypertension, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, and Alzheimer's disease. Eolo Pharma's leadership team includes CEO María Pía Garat, a biotech industry leader with a postgraduate degree from Instituto de Empresa Business School; co-founder and Chief Scientific Officer Carlos Escande, a former Mayo Clinic investigator specializing in cardiometabolic disorders; Chief Chemistry Officer Virginia Lopez, a chemist from Uruguay; and Chief Medical Officer Carlos Batthyany, who also serves as head of the Institut Pasteur de Montevideo. Trending: $100k+ in investable assets? – no cost, no obligation. How SANA Activates Fat Burning Without Appetite Suppression SANA is a salicylate‑based nitroalkene compound originally developed to target inflammation, Eolo Pharma says. It was repurposed after researchers discovered it stimulates creatine‑dependent thermogenesis in white and brown fat cells. Unlike glucagon-like peptide‑1 drugs like Ozempic, which reduce hunger, SANA boosts energy expenditure in fat tissue by turning on heat‑producing metabolic pathways at cellular level. According to Eolo Pharma, SANA protected lean mass and reduced fat more than standard salicylate or metformin in preclinical models. "This is the first time a drug has been shown to pharmacologically activate creatine-based thermogenesis, which could lead to a novel therapeutic approach for obesity in humans," Escande said in the statement. "It opens up an entirely new therapeutic pathway for obesity and metabolic disorders."Weight Loss, Glucose Benefits, and Safety Signals In a randomized, double‑blind, placebo‑controlled Phase 1a/b clinical trial, participants received single ascending doses or multiple ascending doses of SANA for 15 days. The trial included 17 healthy lean volunteers and 24 individuals with obesity. According to Eolo Pharma, patients receiving SANA experienced a statistically significant reduction in body weight compared to placebo, along with improvements in fasting glucose and insulin resistance as measured by Homeostatic Model Assessment of Insulin Resistance. No serious adverse events occurred, and only mild headaches and soft stools were reported in some subjects. A Nature Metabolism study published in June describes SANA as a first‑in‑class small molecule that activates creatine‑dependent thermogenesis in preclinical models and shows safety and early metabolic benefits in a phase 1A/B trial in humans. The authors suggest SANA as a promising therapeutic candidate for obesity, though they note that its efficacy in humans requires further confirmation in larger trials. Read Next: The average American couple has saved this much money for retirement —? Image: Shutterstock Up Next: Transform your trading with Benzinga Edge's one-of-a-kind market trade ideas and tools. Click now to access unique insights that can set you ahead in today's competitive market. Get the latest stock analysis from Benzinga? APPLE (AAPL): Free Stock Analysis Report TESLA (TSLA): Free Stock Analysis Report This article Meet The Biotech Startup Challenging Ozempic With A Fat-Burning Pill That Lets You Keep Eating originally appeared on © 2025 Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved.

Body Composition, Not Just BMI, Matters in Psoriatic Disease
Body Composition, Not Just BMI, Matters in Psoriatic Disease

Medscape

timea day ago

  • Medscape

Body Composition, Not Just BMI, Matters in Psoriatic Disease

BOGOTÁ, Colombia — While obesity has been studied extensively in psoriasis and psoriatic arthritis (PsA), little is known about the role of body composition, or the specific location of fat deposition in and around organs and muscle, in these diseases. At the Group for Research and Assessment of Psoriasis and Psoriatic Arthritis (GRAPPA) 2025 Annual Meeting and Trainee Symposium, two groups of researchers working with MRI and clinical data from the UK Biobank presented detailed findings that shed light on how different body composition profiles might influence or be influenced by psoriatic disease. Visceral, Liver, and Muscle Fat Predict Disease In a poster, Rheumatologist Jean-Guillaume Letarouilly, MD, PhD, of Lille University, Lille, France, and Oxford University, Oxford, England, showed results from a cross-sectional study of 841 patients with psoriasis, 125 patients with PsA, and about 34,000 nonpsoriatic control individuals. Patients across groups had a mean age of 64 years, were nearly all White, approximately half were women, and only a minority (17%-22% across groups) had a BMI ≥ 30. All patients underwent abdominal MRI scan, and participants with psoriasis or PsA were identified by self-report and primary care and hospital records. In multivariate models, Letarouilly and his colleagues found that patients diagnosed with psoriasis tended to have significantly lower muscle volume, higher liver fat, higher visceral fat, higher muscle fat infiltration, and higher total abdominal fat than control individuals without psoriasis. Patients diagnosed with PsA, meanwhile, tended to have significantly elevated liver fat, higher muscle fat infiltration, and higher abdominal fat (but not visceral fat) than control individuals without PsA. The results were suggestive of 'a potential impact of the inflammatory burden of the psoriatic disease on the body composition,' the investigators concluded. In an interview at the meeting, Letarouilly cautioned that his findings 'are for the moment just descriptive. What we need to do now is determine in a longitudinal way whether these body composition changes appear before the disease itself and what role these different types of body fat play in the [pathologic] process.' Body Composition Profiles Predict Comorbidities At the same meeting, Lyn Ferguson, MBChB, PhD, of the University of Glasgow, Glasgow, Scotland, presented results from a different body composition study using UK Biobank data. Ferguson compared results for 236 patients with psoriasis and 1180 control individuals matched for age (mean of about 66 years), sex (about 51% women), and BMI (about 27) — all variables that can affect body fat distribution. She also identified 61 patients with PsA and 305 matched control individuals, both of whom had a mean age of about 63 years, 49% were women, and BMI of about 27. None of the control individuals had metabolic or cardiovascular disease at the time of their baseline scans. Ferguson aimed to determine not only whether people with psoriasis and PsA are more likely to have certain body composition profiles but also whether the same measures of body composition — liver fat, visceral fat, and muscle quality — could also predict diabetes and coronary heart disease in these patients. Ferguson found that people with psoriasis had significantly more fat around the organs (visceral), in the liver, and in muscle, whereas people with PsA had significantly more fat in the liver and muscle than age-, sex-, and BMI-matched control individuals. These body composition profiles were significantly associated with greater propensity to type 2 diabetes. 'We know from the clinic that patients with psoriatic disease have a greater prevalence of diabetes,' Ferguson said in an interview at the meeting. 'This could be in part related to the fat distribution pattern in psoriasis and PsA.' The Surprising Importance of Muscle Ferguson noted that about half of people with psoriasis or PsA had either low muscle volume, high muscle fat, or both — a state known as adverse muscle composition. In individuals with psoriatic disease, adverse muscle composition was associated with over double the propensity to coronary heart disease and three times the propensity to type 2 diabetes compared with a normal muscle composition. Ferguson said a provocative finding from her study was that poor muscle quality was also associated with more than double the risk for new-onset psoriasis (adjusted hazard ratio, 2.12; 95% CI, 1.29-3.50). 'Having more fat stored in the muscle and lower muscle volume appears to be associated with greater risk of developing psoriasis. Whether this may relate to muscle fat being potentially more pro-inflammatory, or whether immune-metabolic dysregulation is already present and contributing to more fat in the muscle and muscle loss, is unknown and warrants further study.' At a meeting intensely focused on the potential benefits of GLP-1 receptor agonists (RAs) in psoriatic disease, both Ferguson and Letarouilly said the muscle-quality findings were of special concern to them as physicians. 'It's really important that people stay physically active to maintain muscle quality, especially if you're losing a lot of weight' because of using GLP-1 RAs, Ferguson said. With the profound weight loss from this drug class, 'a significant amount of weight loss could be muscle. And we've identified a group that has lower thigh muscle volume. That's something we have to watch.' Letarouilly added that stopping GLP-1 drugs has been reported to result in sarcopenic obesity, or concurrent muscle loss and fat gain. 'That's why it is important to advise people to do more exercise,' he said, adding that maintaining bone health is another, related concern. 'We already see this with obesity surgery. With GLP-1s, we would need to monitor patients in the same way.'

Student-Led Initiative Promotes Social Medicine in Canada
Student-Led Initiative Promotes Social Medicine in Canada

Medscape

time2 days ago

  • Medscape

Student-Led Initiative Promotes Social Medicine in Canada

Incorporating social determinants of health (SDOH) into the primary curriculum has become a priority for many Canadian medical schools, which have long been tasked by Health Canada to ensure that future prescribers can work confidently with diverse patient populations. Especially during the first and second years of medical school, most SDOH-related courses are didactic. But through a combination of initiative, forethought, and determination, two first-year medical students at the University of Ottawa's Faculty of Medicine, Ottawa, have created a strategy to enhance this education: the boots-on-the-ground, Student-led Health Initiative Partnership (SHIP) Clinic. Nicole Wisener SHIP is based in the Office of Social Accountability within the University of Ottawa's Faculty of Medicine and was officially launched in January 2025. The goal, explained SHIP co-founder Nicole Wisener, was to identify ways in which students could support the services delivered by organizations that already were embedded into Ottawa communities. The added benefit would be to help medical students enhance their clinical skills. 'I wanted to find a way for medical students to step outside the classroom and learn what social medicine means and learn the challenges faced by disadvantaged communities,' Wisener told Medscape Medical News. 'The best way to learn is by speaking with people who are actually facing these issues; that's what the SHIP Clinic was born out of.' Claire Kendall, MD, PhD 'Many of these students have come into medical school wanting to make changes to SDOH or reflecting on their importance in health,' said Claire Kendall, MD, PhD, associate dean of social accountability at the University of Ottawa and family physician at Bruyère Health Academic Family Medicine in Ottawa. 'Exposing them as early as possible is critical.' Forging Community Partnerships One of the keys to the early successes of the SHIP program has been its collection of community partnerships. Wisener said that she and co-founder Emily Liang initially identified and approached several organizations to discuss their needs and where medical students might fill resource gaps. 'One of our concerns was to ensure that the program was both sustainable and beneficial to the community or community partner, as well as the students,' said Wisener. 'As much as we wanted to have medical students helping out in these spaces, we also understood the need to find a balance between what partners were comfortable with and had the capacity for and how we could help boost their productivity.' This consideration is important for other schools that might be considering similar programs. 'It can be a resource win, but we should not make the assumption that it's a win for all organizations,' noted Kendall. 'We need to make sure that we understand the organization's context well so that students can be of service.' There must be 'a mutual understanding of their skills and skill levels, how much supervision they need, and how their presence can be embedded into existing processes and caring for patients,' she added. Aiding Unhoused Patients Programs like SHIP can be a boon by freeing up resources and enabling community partners to devote their attention elsewhere. They can also supplement ongoing efforts in ways that partners might not be able to afford or organize. Simon Hatcher, MD Partnering with SHIP was a timesaver, Simon Hatcher, MD, a psychiatrist at the Ottawa Hospital, a scientist at the Ottawa Hospital Research Institute, and acting chair of psychiatry at the University of Ottawa, told Medscape Medical News. 'For me, it's a way to spread myself a bit further. An hour of time supervising medical students translates into at least 2 hours of patients getting counseling; they provide supportive therapy for people who otherwise would not receive it.' Hatcher also works part-time at Ottawa Inner City Health, an organization that provides physical and mental healthcare services to unhoused patients. Partnering with SHIP is 'a win-win situation,' he added. For the inaugural year, Hatcher worked with two students who provided supportive counseling to patients in two supportive housing units. These patients initially were ambivalent about working with the students: Nearly every unhoused person has a history of trauma and is wary of relationships, he said. Ultimately, the patients were quite grateful. The care 'was something they wouldn't otherwise be able to access,' said Hatcher. Ananya Toal was one of Hatcher's volunteer students. She told Medscape Medical News that what drew her to apply to SHIP was the opportunity to meld her passion for advocacy with lessons learned in the classroom and translate those lessons into practice. 'Essentially, I provided supportive counseling for individuals who've experienced substance use disorders or had been in the criminal system,' said Toal. 'We'd talk about their lives, future goals, and if they were willing, past traumas and how they shaped their reactions or the person they had become,' she said. Her favorite part of the program was the opportunity to have a one-on-one, uninterrupted interaction with the patient for an hour every week. 'When we're going into clinics and talking to patients, even as medical students, we don't get to spend much time with them. It was nice to be able to sit down, hear their perspective, and discuss things more holistically, which is something the system doesn't really offer,' said Toal. A Growing Program SHIP is preparing to launch an increased capacity program that will run from September 2025 to June 2026. Though she is unclear as to the number of community partners that will be added to the current roster (which includes Ottawa Inner City Health, Centretown Community Health Centre, Eastern Ottawa Resource Centre, and Carlington Community Centre), there are plans to increase the number of students from 17 to 35. Regardless, SHIP will continue to focus on Ottawa's underserved communities. 'I've learned from community members what health equity and SDOH are and how they intersect to affect health,' said Wisener. 'By having a bigger world view and a more compassionate view of the different things that patients go through in their lives, we can provide much higher quality care for them.' Kendall stressed that SDOH have a major influence on patients' health. 'The places where people live, work, and play are directly associated with how healthy they are. Our students will need a strong foundation for addressing SDOH through socially oriented, community-partnered, and reflective practice,' she said. SHIP might also be a strategy for responding to the family medicine crisis in Canada, said Kendall. 'It's a way of reintroducing compassion into medicine,' added Hatcher. Wisener, Kendall, Liang, and Hatcher reported having no relevant financial relationships.

DOWNLOAD THE APP

Get Started Now: Download the App

Ready to dive into a world of global content with local flavor? Download Daily8 app today from your preferred app store and start exploring.
app-storeplay-store