We recognize that achieving our business goals requires that we operate with high integrity, transparency and environmental sustainability.
Society has increasingly high expectations for ethical behavior from global healthcare companies – expectations that very often go beyond what is legally required. We are taking steps to ensure our standards align with these expectations.
Our commitment to doing what’s right
NikSam is committed to ensuring our associates are empowered to do what’s right. On September 01, 2020, we introduced a new Code of Ethics for NikSam. Created by our associates, for our associates, our new Code is a collection of our commitments to ethical standards across our business.
Our Code of Ethics was co-created with the inputs of thousands of associates. It is anchored in behavioral science, and underpinned by four clear ethical principles:
Be Open-Minded
Be Honest
Be Bold
Be Accountable
our commitment to science is a commitment to better our society
The Code of Ethics replaces our former Code of Conduct and is a fundamental part of the terms of employment for all associates of NikSam Group companies. All associates receive the Code when they join the NikSam Group and are held accountable to its contents. It is available in 22 languages and has been adopted by local boards.
The Code contains our principles and expectations for ethical business conduct that help guide our associates in making the right decisions when they encounter difficult situations or ethical challenges during the course of their work.
The Code of Ethics focuses on our commitment to meet the expectations of our five key stakeholder groups: our patients, associates, shareholders, healthcare partners and society. While our purpose – to reimagine medicine to improve and extend lives – drives our values and defines our culture of inspired, curious and unbossed, our ethical principles guide us in our everyday decision-making and ensure we act with integrity.
Because ethics isn’t black and white, we’ve created an online, interactive ethical decision making framework to guide our associates towards better decision making. The framework guides users through 15 questions, prompting deep reflection as part of the decision-making process, surfacing up to 6 possible biases and suggesting materials and resources for further learning. The framework does not replace conversation and consultation, and does not give a definitive answer about what one should do, but it helps broaden perspectives and encourages better understanding and application of our ethical principles.
NikSam expects leaders to lead by example. This means that leaders must accommodate ethical considerations in business planning and decision-making, empowering associates to make responsible decisions, and creating a safe environment to speak up when ethical challenges arise.
In addition, we encourage and reward ethical behavior by including an assessment of each associate’s alignment to our values and behaviors in their annual performance appraisal. Achieving business objectives and alignment with company values receive equal weighting in compensation reviews.
Awareness and training programs are offered regularly in a range of formats, including awareness-building programs, e-training, face-to-face programs, games and workshops. We provide extensive communication toolkits to support awareness programs at the local level.
We require associates to report actual or suspected violations of our Code of Ethics, but realize that fear of reprisals can make people hesitant to speak up. This is why we enforce clear policies to prevent retaliation against any associate reporting an issue.
All NikSam Group company associates are required to complete ethics, risk and compliance training. Our global e-training curriculum provides relevant information to enable associates to make the right choices in the course of their work and to perform with integrity. It addresses identified and relevant company risks and helps to communicate new and upgraded policies and guidelines across the organization.
In addition, all newly hired associates and contractors worldwide complete a mandatory onboarding e-Training course. This comprehensive course covers 17 subject areas and is sent to all new hires four weeks after their employment begins.
We report relevant completion rates for our e-trainings in our NikSam in Society ESG Report. Training on ethical business practices is included in our Corporate Leadership Learning programs, and we provide extensive training for our Ethics, Risk and Compliance Officers across the company.
At NikSam, we use science-based innovation to address some of society’s most challenging healthcare issues. We discover and develop breakthrough treatments and find new ways to deliver them to as many people as possible.
The business of health requires high levels of trust. It is fundamental to our success. To achieve our aspiration to be the world’s most respected and successful healthcare company, we must earn and maintain the trust of our key stakeholders – the people we work with and the patients we work for to improve health.
As the transparency landscape is rapidly evolving, with more countries starting to introduce legislation that requires public disclosure of payments to doctors. NikSam is keeping pace with the developments and is committed to meeting new transparency requirements.
We also aim to be transparent about the results, impact, challenges and key learnings from our access-to-medicine programs.
Our overall goal is to enhance our transparency to meet the needs and expectations of our stakeholders by offering easy access to key data on important areas of our business.