British pharmaceutical company GSK announced on Wednesday it will form a strategic partnership with Guangzhou Institute of Respiratory Diseases (GIRD).

The strategic collaboration will focus on respiratory disease management system, including athma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), said GSK.

According to the company, a health big data system will be developed through information sharing and covering different levels of healthcare organizations and reimbursement systems.

Real world evidence (RWE) and payment evidence will be generated and provided to relative authorities for the support of health and reimbursement policy making, streamlining of clinical path management, and effective development of hierarchical medical system, said the company.

The strategic collaboration includes a prospective COPD registry study and "New Breath, Constant Care" China Asthma Patient Management Project.

The COPD registry study will cover 5,000 patients and establish an in-depth understanding of COPD disease characteristics, disease evolution, disease management, as well as evolvement of the treatment paradigm.

The registry will also be able to measure COPD disease burden, and predict disease outcome in China. This could further help inform the future COPD disease management strategy in China.

"New Breath, Constant Care" China Asthma Patient Management Project will lead hospitals of different levels across China to set up a national asthma management collaboration network and build a digital asthma management platform, a patient database and management tools based upon APPs.