"Responsibility is embedded in AstraZeneca’s business strategy because we consider it to be critical to our continued success"
The value of AstraZeneca’s medicines to patients and society is at the heart of our corporate responsibility (CR). There is an ever greater demand for healthcare, driven by people living longer, rising populations and the emergence of new economies. In addition, despite the significant advances in healthcare in recent decades, many diseases remain under-diagnosed or not well treated, or there is not yet an effective therapy. Continued innovation is required to address these unmet medical needs. Alongside these opportunities for our business, we also face a number of challenges, including pricing pressure, higher regulatory hurdles and strong competition.
AstraZeneca has a clear strategy for driving continued success within this dynamic business environment. It centres on four main priorities:
Strengthening our pipeline of new medicines – both from our own research efforts and through externalisation to access the world of science outside AstraZeneca that will help us develop better, safer medicines.
Delivering the full potential of all our marketed medicines – through rigorous lifecycle management and excellent customer support, to ensure we deliver the full benefit of our range for patients and society.
Re-shaping our business – by challenging all aspects of our cost base to make room for further investment in the research, development, manufacturing and marketing of new medicines.
Promoting a culture of responsibility and accountability – because I want AstraZeneca to be valued both as a source of great medicines and as a company committed to delivering business success responsibly. This fourth priority underpins and supports achievement of the first three.
ON THE ISSUES
Our worldwide research, development, manufacturing and marketing activities put AstraZeneca in the global spotlight on a diverse range of issues that affect or concern our stakeholders and society today. This section of our international website is dedicated to providing information about our position on these issues, and about our performance in these areas. CR reporting is also now integrated into our Annual Report and Form 20-F Information, where you can also read more about our business environment, strategy, goals and performance.
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CR reporting is now integrated into our Annual Report and Form 20-F Information, where you can also read more about our business environment, strategy, goals and performance.
The safety of medicines, access to medicines, sales and marketing practice, research ethics, employment practice, the environment and suppliers remain at the top of our CR agenda, and we continue to monitor our internal and external environment for new and emerging issues relating to our business.
STRENGTHENING OUR PLATFORM
Over the last two years, we have been working to strengthen our global platform for driving the continued and consistent integration of responsible business practice across all our activities worldwide.
Our new and expanded Code of Conduct went into effect in 2008 and everyone in the Company was trained in the new Code during the year. We also revised and enhanced the content of our Global Policies and these became effective in January 2009. Training is ongoing.
CR requirements are explicitly embedded in the new Code and Policies, which together provide clear guidance on what responsible business means for AstraZeneca and what is expected of everyone as we work to achieve our business goals.
Alongside this, to further strengthen our high level CR management capability, we have established a dedicated Global CR Team of experienced CR professionals from around the Company. The new Team leads the development of our CR strategy and the alignment of tactical delivery. They work closely with senior leaders across AstraZeneca, and with our Global Compliance function, to ensure that the CR risks and opportunities are identified and managed appropriately, in line with business objectives, and to ensure compliance with all relevant policies and standards.
We continue to work to ensure that new members of the AstraZeneca family understand our CR expectations. MedImmune, which we acquired in 2007, was closely involved in the development of our new Code of Conduct and Global Policies and, during 2008 MedImmune appointed two CR-dedicated staff, who are working closely with the Global CR Team on the development of MedImmune CR frameworks, in line with our strategic objectives. Read more.
In early 2009, we also developed a combined Compliance and CR “Responsible Business” scorecard with defined objectives and accountabilities, to track performance consistently across all Senior Executive Team (SET) areas and enable quarterly reporting to SET, the Audit Committee and Professor Dame Nancy Rothwell, as well as annual reporting to the Board and SET. We plan to introduce this new scorecard during 2009.
UNDERSTANDING OUR STAKEHOLDERS’ EXPECTATIONS
Whilst we work to strengthen our internal governance and management frameworks, we know that we must not lose sight of our stakeholders’ expectations. We encourage constructive dialogue with all our stakeholders and others who have an interest in our activities to make sure we stay in touch with the external environment and the changing demands of sustainable development.
As well as our day-to-day business interactions with stakeholders, which also provide the opportunity for seeking views or raising concerns, we also hold multi-stakeholder sessions focused exclusively on corporate responsibility. We recently held two such sessions, one in the UK and one in Sweden, involving a range of participants including non-governmental organisations, investors, academia, the research community and our peers. We also held a meeting with 21 Socially Responsible Investors to discuss sustainability issues. In addition, we tracked employee opinion across a range of topics through our 2008 global employee survey. Prevailing themes across all these interactions included access to medicines, human rights, the environment, the supply chain and business ethics. The feedback gained is being used to help inform the development of our CR strategy. Read more.
We plan to further expand our stakeholder engagement activity to make sure that we are capturing fully the expectations of a rapidly-changing world, and are also working to ensure that we have the mechanisms for collecting and assessing feedback consistently worldwide.
MAINTAINING FOCUS
The pharmaceutical industry is arguably less exposed than other sectors to the current economic downturn, although some impact may result from increased constraints on payers, suppliers and distributors. Nevertheless, our rapidly changing business environment will continue to be a challenging one. Tough times are not an excuse for failing to live by our core values. At AstraZeneca, everyone at all levels is held personally responsible for ensuring that nothing, including the need to meet targets, ever compromises our commitment to responsible business practice.
Our continuing drive to improve efficiency and effectiveness resulted in further planned reductions of our workforce in some areas of our business during 2008 and I remain committed to ensuring that we manage these changes in line with our core values. Throughout, we have consulted with staff representatives and acted in line with local labour laws. We have also provided appropriate support to help individuals pursue their careers beyond AstraZeneca and have engaged with communities around the affected sites to mitigate the local impact.
LOOKING AHEAD
CR is not an optional extra – it is core to the sustainable development of our business. My management teams and I are committed to ensuring that responsible business considerations continue to be integrated into everyday business thinking and decision-making throughout the Company.
I believe that the actions we have taken recently to strengthen further our internal governance and management processes, coupled with our continued focus on understanding our external environment, provide a firm foundation for building on our progress to date and driving continuous improvement going forward.
CR is a journey not a destination. We are making progress but in the ever-changing world in which we live, we will continue to face both challenges and opportunities for our CR, as in other aspects of our business. There will always be work to do to ensure that AstraZeneca continues to be a company that is valued not only for our contribution to healthcare but recognised for our commitment to delivering business success responsibly.
David R Brennan
Chief Executive Officer
February 2009
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At 20-Nov-2009 22:43 GMT
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