Performance by Technical Area

Has a strong access-to-medicine strategy with executive-level responsibility. Eli Lilly is one of the 14 companies that performs strongly with regard to its access-to-medicine strategy, which aligns with its corporate strategies and includes access-related goals. The strategy currently centres around its Lilly 30x30 Program, aimed at delivering access to quality healthcare for 30 million people in resource-limited settings by 2030. The highest level of responsibility for access sits with an executive committee member.  

Financial and non-financial access-related incentives to reward employees. Eli Lilly 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 compensation rewards, and its Access Excellence Awards recognising individual contributions. 

One of 16 companies working on impact measurement. Eli Lilly measures and monitors progress and outcomes of access-to-medicine activities. It also publicly reports on its commitments. For example, for its Lilly Expanding Access for People (LEAP) programme in China, the company reports committing to address local realities and medical needs, to help populations lacking effective access to healthcare. Furthermore, it is part of the Access Accelerated initiative, which includes a commitment to evaluate impact. 

Limited transparency about stakeholder engagement. Eli Lilly performs relatively poorly when it comes to the disclosure of its stakeholder engagement. It 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. Neither does it report incorporating local stakeholder perspectives into the development of access strategies. 

Has measures to ensure third-party compliance with ethical marketing and anti-corruption standards. Eli Lilly has the Red Book Code of Business Conduct for governing business ethics. The company provides compliance training for employees on an annual basis. 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. Eli Lilly's internal control framework to ensure compliance meets some of the criteria looked for by the Index. Namely, it has an auditing and review mechanism in place and maintains an ethics and compliance monitoring programme. It does not, however, report fraud-specific risk assessments, nor does it demonstrate evidence of procedures to segregate duties, to ensure decisions are checked by another party. 

Below average transparency regarding access-related practices. Eli Lilly publicly discloses its policy positions on access-related topics (e.g., its position on intellectual property and trade policy). It is one of the few companies in scope to have a policy that prohibits political financial contributions. The company discloses its membership of relevant organisations but not whether it provides financial support. It does not publicly disclose its policies for responsible engagement, nor its policy approach to payments made to healthcare professionals in countries in scope.

Publicly commits to R&D to meet public health needs. Eli Lilly 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 an internal review of needs unique to these countries. It does not report time-bound strategies for completing R&D projects for diseases in scope. Eli Lilly has one of the smallest pipelines in the Index with 27 projects. For diseases in scope where priorities exist, Eli Lilly is active in one project, which targets a priority R&D gap for tuberculosis. 

No access provisions; process in place for setting them. Eli Lilly has a general process in place to develop access plans during R&D. The process considers some R&D projects for diseases in scope, namely projects for malaria and tuberculosis that are developed in collaboration. Eli Lilly has not disclosed project-specific access provisions for any of its 15 late-stage R&D projects. 

Public policy to ensure post-trial access; commits to registering trialed products. Eli Lilly 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, Eli Lilly commits to registering it in all countries where clinical trials for the product have taken place.