Sanofi CEO Paul Hudson has outlined key projects that the company will implement to increase the impact of its Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) strategy. The company’s commitment is based on: access to medicines, support for vulnerable communities, preservation of the environment, and inclusion and diversity of its employees.
“The pandemic has forced us to question nearly every aspect of our lives: how we live and work, and how we connect with our communities and the planet. Yet as challenging as 2020 was, it also brought us –Sanofi and the pharmaceutical industry– closer to our purpose than at any other time in living memory,” said Hudson. “This unique context led us to elevate our ambition for our Corporate Social Responsibility strategy and embed it even more into our mission to transform lives and our vision for a better future.”
Sanofi Global Health is a newly formed non-profit unit within the company. Leveraging the company’s portfolio of medicines and global footprint, Sanofi Global Health is dedicated to increasing access to medicines considered essential by the World Health Organization (WHO) for patients in 40 lower income countries.
Thirty of Sanofi’s medicines will be provided across a range of therapeutic areas, including cardiovascular disease, diabetes, tuberculosis, malaria and cancer. Sanofi Global Health will fund the training of healthcare professionals, or the set up and development of sustainable care systems for those who suffer from chronic diseases and require complex care.
Sanofi has also promised to help 1,000 patients living with rare diseases who have no access to treatments and will donate 100,000 vials of medicine for treatments annually, continuing Sanofi’s 30-year commitment to patients suffering from rare diseases, such as Fabry, Gaucher or Pompe diseases, for which access to treatment is often limited.
Sanofi says it will continue its efforts to fight polio and sleeping sickness, two of its historical programs that address global health issues. In December 2020, the company announced it had renewed its five-year partnership with WHO to fight neglected tropical diseases that affect approximately one billion people. Sanofi has committed itself alongside the WHO to eliminate this neglected tropical disease in humans by 2030. Over the past 40 years, Sanofi has supplied billions of polio vaccine doses, including hundreds of millions of donated doses to support the global polio eradication effort.
Image credit: Myrian Zilles
