Aventis Company Profile
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Aventis company profile Francis Weyzig Amsterdam, October 2004 Summary Business description impacts of its operations. In 2003, Aventis Aventis, which merged with Sanofi-Synthélabo adopted a new Sustainability Policy. This in 2004, is a major innovative pharmaceutical forms the overarching CSR policy of the corporation. Its core businesses are the company and brings together the policy discovery, development and marketing of elements for various individual CSR issues. branded prescription drugs, vaccines and Aventis has set up a new CSR management animal health products. structure and reports elaborately on CSR Headquarters: France performance in its annual Sustainability Global presence: over 170 countries Reports. The company is clearly in a process Primary markets: USA, France, Germany, of adopting a more integral CSR approach. and Japan Recent criticism concerning Aventis’ CSR Employees: approximately 76,000 performance includes inappropriate drug promotion and price fixing. Aventis key figures for 2003 (in € million) Sales 17,815 Aventis supports the World Trade Materials and production costs 5,377 Organization (WTO) agreement on intellectual Marketing and administration 6,198 property protection, including the safeguards R&D expenditures 2,924 to secure access to medicines in the case of Operating income 3,670 urgent public health needs. Yet Aventis is also Net profit 1,901 in favour of stronger patent protection, which might limit access to medicines in poor Since 2002, Aventis has divested its countries. The company follows a agribusiness division and other non-core constructive approach for the pricing of activities. The company focuses on seven vaccines by offering them at differential high-potential strategic products, including prices for UNICEF tenders. Furthermore, it Allegra/Telfast (allergies), Lovenox/Clexane has several R&D programmes on vaccines of (thrombosis), Taxotere (oncology), and special relevance to developing countries. Delix/Tritace (hypertension). These four However, it does not describe any special drugs generated global sales above €1 billion commitments or explicit targets (for example each. Aventis Pasteur, the vaccines division of in terms of R&D investment) for R&D on Aventis, is also a key contributor to the diseases that mainly affect poor countries. business success of the company. Global Public-Private Initiatives (GPPIs) Aventis produces several products of special GPPIs bring together different partners to importance to developing countries, address health problems in poor countries. including: Aventis participates in a variety of GPPIs, Vaccines for developing countries including: Pentamidine, melarsoprol and eflorni- Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI) thine, against sleeping sickness WHO Programme to Eliminate Sleeping Glucantime, against leishmaniasis Sickness (WPESS) Tuberculosis drugs Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization (GAVI) Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) Paediatric Dengue Vaccine Initiative CSR refers to the responsibility of a company (PDVI) for the social, ecological and economic Dengue Vaccine Project (DVP) Aventis – Summary of company profile 2 Stop TB Partnership (Stop TB) people with tuberculosis in South Africa. TB TB Free Free is implemented by the Nelson Mandela Aventis also funds a variety of smaller Foundation in coordination with the South initiatives. African government. TB Free trains people to support compliance with the complicated 6- The GPEI was started in 1988 with the aim of month treatment regime of tuberculosis. global polio eradication by 2000 through Teams of Aventis employees are involved in large-scale vaccination campaigns. When it the trainings. was realized that this target would not be reached and the World Health Organization Analysis of GPPI involvement (WHO) strongly increased the amount of The business benefits of a GPPI for Aventis vaccinations, funds were falling short. Aventis vary according to the nature of a the helped with several donations of Oral Polio partnership, which can be R&D-oriented (e.g. Vaccine, next to its (much larger) regular PDVI) or philanthropic (e.g. WPESS). The supplies at preferential prices. A tripartite value of research-oriented partnerships is in Memorandum of Understanding was signed the acceleration of the development of a with UNICEF and the WHO for each donation. vaccine. Aventis explains the main company benefits of philanthropic programmes, on the The WPESS was started in 2001 when Aventis other hand, are an enhanced corporate image decided to donate its drugs against sleeping and the sense of pride that it creates, which sickness. The WHO and Aventis agreed on a 5- motivates employees. year partnership with three components: drug donations, disease management and control, It is difficult to get a clear overview of and R&D. Aventis has committed a total Aventis’ total contributions to GPPIs. This is amount of US$ 25 million to this partnership. partly because of the diverse nature of these The drugs are distributed by Médécins sans contributions, and partly because Aventis Frontières (MSF). does not report aggregate annual figures on the financial and in-kind support it provides. The GAVI was established in 1999 to expand The analysis of Aventis’ involvement with the widespread use of vaccines in developing various GPPIs shows that the company makes countries. Aventis was actively involved in the diverse contributions and uses its specific establishment of the GAVI and from 1999 to expertise. This supports the rationale for 2002, Aventis represented the pharmaceutical GPPIs, which generally consists of various industry in the GAVI Board. The GAVI has partners combining their specific expertise. identified three priority diseases: Hepatitis B, Haemophilus influenza type b and yellow Lack of transparency about partnership fever. This focus has been subject to agreements, for example for the WPESS and criticism. Aventis is a main supplier of yellow GPEI, prevents a full external assessment of fever vaccines to GAVI, with supplies worth the conditions of cooperation. The same $34 million for the period 2001-2004. Aventis applies to the establishment of GPPIs, such as Pasteur also provides funding for the EPIVAC, GAVI. Furthermore, there may be concerns a vaccinology training programme in Western that responsibilities are transferred from Africa that is linked to GAVI. donor governments to companies. This applies to the WPESS, for example, and calls for In 2002, Aventis initiated the TB Free larger contributions from donor governments. programme to improve the health situation of Aventis company profile 3 Contents Summary .................................................................................................. 2 List of acronyms ......................................................................................... 5 Introduction .............................................................................................. 6 1 General characteristics .......................................................................... 7 1.1 Corporate headquarters..................................................................... 7 1.2 A short history ................................................................................ 7 1.3 Ownership structure ......................................................................... 7 1.4 Merger with Sanofi-Synthélabo ............................................................ 8 1.5 Business profile............................................................................... 9 1.6 Business strategy ............................................................................ 10 1.7 Restructuring ................................................................................ 12 1.8 Key figures ................................................................................... 12 1.9 Medicines of special importance to developing countries ............................ 15 2 CSR policy: general ..............................................................................18 2.1 CSR issues in the pharmaceutical sector ................................................ 18 2.2 Positive and negative publicity ........................................................... 18 2.3 Policies........................................................................................ 19 2.4 Implementation and governance ......................................................... 21 2.5 Supply chain responsibilities .............................................................. 21 2.6 Stakeholder involvement .................................................................. 21 2.7 Transparency and reporting ............................................................... 22 2.8 Independent verification................................................................... 23 2.9 Conclusion.................................................................................... 23 3 CSR policy: medicines for developing countries...........................................25 3.1 Patents........................................................................................ 25 3.2 Preferential pricing ......................................................................... 27 3.3 R&D............................................................................................ 29 3.4 Conclusion.................................................................................... 29 4 GPPI involvement ................................................................................31