Sustainability

Find out how we’re working to do better for people and the planet

5 key takeaways from our 2020/2021 Environmental, Social & Governance (ESG) Progress Report

September 28, 2021

In September, we launched our 2020/2021 Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) Progress Report, an overview of our company’s performance in four key areas:

Expanding access to health
Developing a diverse, inclusive and healthy workforce
Protecting the environment
Operating with the highest standards of ethics and values

In addition to tracking our performance over the past year, the report reaffirms our commitment to corporate responsibility and shows the ways we’re challenging ourselves to do even better in the future.

“Our mission to save and improve lives and our drive to deliver value for society and our business have never been more vital or urgent."

Rob Davis

CEO and president

Here are the highlights:

01.

Expanding access to health

We’ve set new goals to enable greater access to health around the world by 2025:

Further advance health equity by reaching 30 million people in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) and in underserved U.S. populations with our social investments.
Reach at least 75% of countries around the world annually with our products.
Enable 100 million more people to access our innovative portfolio globally, through access strategies, solutions and partnerships.

02.

Advancing health equity

Central to our mission to save and improve lives is the belief that all people should have a fair and just opportunity to be as healthy as possible. Our efforts include:

Investing $49 million annually in partnerships, programs and impact investments that support health care capacity-building and address underlying barriers to health access.
Ensuring our clinical trials are diverse and inclusive by pursuing new ways to recruit and engage clinical trial participants who are racially, socioeconomically and demographically representative of the communities we aim to serve. This includes forging partnerships with organizations like Black Health Matters, the National Urban League and the Lazarex Cancer Foundation.

03.

Fighting COVID-19

As the pandemic continues to rage around the world, COVID-19 remains an urgent issue for our company.

Despite significant cuts to the global supply chain, COVID-19 didn’t disrupt distribution of our company’s products. “Throughout the year, we continued to deliver for people and animals without interruption — from ensuring ongoing clinical trials to maintaining quality supply and critical access to our products,” says Davis.
We’re studying a new antiviral therapy, in collaboration with Ridgeback Biotherapeutics, to treat mild-to-moderate cases of coronavirus.
We continue to invest in solutions to the pandemic, including our collaboration with Johnson & Johnson to scale up production of its COVID-19 vaccine.

04.

Increasing diversity throughout our company

We strive to create a culture of belonging and ensure that the diversity of our employees and company leaders reflects the world we serve. This includes increasing senior management roles for women and members of underrepresented ethnic groups, continuing to hire more diverse candidates, and maintaining a diverse board of directors.

This year:

Diverse hires increased 5% from 2020.
46% of board roles are held by women, and 23% are held by members of underrepresented ethnic groups.

By 2024, our goal is to:

Increase senior management roles for women leaders globally to 40%, up from 31% in 2020.
Increase senior management roles for Black/African American leaders in the U.S. to 10%, up from 5% in 2020.
Increase senior management goals for Hispanic/Latino leaders in the U.S. to 10%, up from 5% in 2020.

05.