Performance by Technical Area

Has an access-to-medicine strategy with executive-level responsibility. Bristol-Myers Squibb has an access-to-medicine strategy with a business rationale. The strategy includes measures such as equitable pricing, licensing, philanthropy and capacity building. The highest level of responsibility for access sits with its Worldwide Access Council, at the executive level.

Financial and non-financial access-related incentives to reward employees. Bristol-Myers Squibb performs strongly in encouraging employees to work towards access-related objectives. It is one of 14 companies to have both financial and non-financial incentives in place to motivate employees to perform on access-related issues. These incentives include awards for performance and public recognition by senior company leaders in internal meetings and through internal social media for objectives reached. 

One of 16 companies working on impact measurement. Bristol-Myers Squibb measures and monitors progress and outcomes of access-to-medicine activities. It also publicly reports on commitments, targets, objectives and performance information. For its HIV and hepatitis C medicines that are available in countries in scope, the company reports tracking the number of patients benefiting from its medicines. Furthermore, it is part of the Access Accelerated initiative, which includes a commitment to evaluate impact.

Discloses who it engages with, incorporates local perspectives into strategies. Bristol-Myers Squibb publicly discloses which stakeholder groups it engages with on access issues, but does not publicly share its process for selecting who to engage with, nor its policy for ensuring responsible engagement. It does incorporate local stakeholder perspectives into the development of access strategies.

Has measures to ensure third-party compliance with ethical marketing and anti-corruption standards. Bristol-Myers Squibb has a code of conduct relating to ethical marketing and anti-corruption and provides biannual compliance training for employees and third parties. The company provides evidence of having formal processes in place to ensure compliance with standards by third parties. Yet, expected performance for sales agents is based solely on sales targets. 

Internal control framework meets some Index criteria. Bristol-Myers Squibb's internal control framework to ensure compliance meets some of the criteria looked for by the Index. Namely, it has an internal auditing department for the whole company, involving both internal and external resources and applying to all third parties. It does not, however, report fraud-specific risk assessments, nor does it demonstrate evidence of a monitoring system for non-compliance in the workplace, or procedures to segregate duties, to ensure decisions are checked by another party. 

Above average transparency regarding access-related practices. Bristol-Myers Squibb publicly discloses its policy positions on access-related topics (e.g., its policy committing to provide appropriate patient access to medicines). It is one of the few companies in scope to have a policy that prohibits political financial contributions outside the USA. The company publicly discloses its membership of patient organisations, including the financial support it provides. It discloses policies for responsible engagement within its Principles of Integrity. It does not publicly disclose its policy approach to payments made to healthcare professionals in countries in scope.

Publicly commits to R&D to meet public health needs. Bristol-Myers Squibb has publicly committed to R&D for diseases and countries in scope. Its R&D strategy for low- and middle-income countries is informed by an evidence-based public health rationale linked to sources including the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. Further, it has time-bound strategies for completing R&D projects for diseases in scope and evaluates progress toward these targets. Bristol-Myers Squibb has one of the smallest pipelines in the Index with 25 projects. For diseases in scope where priorities exist, Bristol-Myers Squibb is active in two projects; both of these target priority R&D gaps.

No clear process to consider access during development. Bristol-Myers Squibb does not have a clear process in place to develop access plans during R&D. Instead, Bristol-Myers Squibb considers access on a case-by-case basis. In general, Bristol-Myers Squibb develops access plans for R&D projects late in the development process and close to submission for market approval. To date, Bristol-Myers Squibb does not have any project-specific access provisions in place for its eight late-stage R&D projects. Five of these projects were approved during the period of analysis.

Public policy to ensure post-trial access; commits to registering trialed products. Bristol-Myers Squibb has a publicly available policy for ensuring post-trial access to treatments for clinical trial participants. The policy is aligned with the standards set in the Declaration of Helsinki. Once a product is approved, Bristol-Myers Squibb commits to registering it in all countries where clinical trials for the product have taken place.