Performance by Technical Area

Has a strong access-to-medicine strategy with board-level responsibility. Takeda is one of 14 companies that performs strongly with regard to its access-to-medicine strategy, which includes access-related goals and aligns with its corporate strategies. The strategy capitalises on partnerships, and focuses on addressing unmet needs, through R&D, IP management, patient assistance programmes and capacity building. The highest level of responsibility for access sits with a board-level committee. 

Financial and non-financial access-related incentives to reward employees. Takeda 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 financial bonuses and fellowship opportunities. 

One of 16 companies working on impact measurement. Takeda measures and monitors progress and outcomes of access-to-medicine activities. It also publicly reports on commitments and performance information. For example, Takeda publicly committed to supply vaccines for infectious diseases such as dengue, Zika, norovirus and polio. 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. akeda 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. Takeda has a code of conduct relating to ethical marketing and anti-corruption, and provides regular compliance training for employees upon hire and on an annual basis. The company provides evidence of having formal processes in place to ensure compliance with standards by third parties. Sales agents' rewards are not solely based on sales targets. Instead, it rewards other qualities relating to accountability and integrity in the workplace. 

Internal control framework meets some Index criteria. Takeda's internal control framework to ensure compliance meets some of the criteria looked for by the Index. Namely, it has some processes aimed at mitigating non-compliance, addressed in its global monitoring policy. It has an auditing and review mechanism in place, and performs regular evaluations, that also apply to third parties. It does not demonstrate evidence of having fraud-specific risk assessment. It does, however, have a monitoring system to track compliance in the workplace, and procedures to segregate duties, so that decisions are checked by another party.

Below average transparency regarding access-related practices. Takeda publicly discloses its policy positions on access-related topics (e.g., it publicly supports TRIPS and the Doha Declaration). It does not have a policy prohibiting political contributions in countries in scope, but reports that it did not make such contributions during the period of analysis. It does not publicly disclose its financial support and membership of relevant organisations, nor its policies for responsible engagement. Further, Takeda 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. Takeda 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 based on internal targets and data from external sources related to global health needs. Further, it has time-bound strategies for completing R&D projects for diseases in scope and evaluates progress toward these targets. Takeda has a mid-sized pipeline in the Index with 35 projects. For diseases in scope where priorities exist, Takeda is active in 13 projects; all 13 of these target priority R&D gaps. 

Access provisions in place for 21% (3/14) of late-stage candidates. Takeda has a clear process in place to develop access plans during R&D. The process considers all R&D projects for diseases in scope. In general, Takeda begins considering and developing access plans for R&D projects from the discovery phase onward. To date, Takeda has project-specific access provisions in place for three of its late-stage R&D projects. Of these, one is being conducted in partnership with the Medicines for Malaria Venture (MMV). 

Policy to ensure post-trial access; commits to registering trialed products. Takeda has a policy for ensuring post-trial access to treatments for clinical trial participants and has provided a detailed example of this policy in action in countries in scope. However, this policy is not publicly available. The policy is aligned with the standards set in the Declaration of Helsinki. Once a product is approved, Takeda commits to registering it in all countries where clinical trials for the product have taken place.