Pfizers miljö- och ansvarsblogg

4 Steps to a Sustainable Use of Pharmaceuticals

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I have in my blogposts from January 28 and February 2, 2011, shown a somewhat blurry schematic I call “4 steps to a sustainable use of pharmaceuticals”. The schematic has been developed by the so called “Sustainable Development Task Force” within LIF (the research based pharmaceutical industry in Sweden).

I said that I would come back to the issue in more detail, and that is what I intend to do today.

Step 1: Promote Health and Prevent Illness

Resources in society are limited. Resources should therefore be used wisely, and hence it is preferable that illnesses that can be prevented should be prevented. If someone nevertheless become ill, patients have the right to be treated with effective and innovative medicines. Early and correct diagnoses is important in order to initiate treatment promptly. The pharmaceutical industry should contribute with its knowledge, services (e.g. patient support programs on life style changes) and products (e.g. vaccines, nutritional products and vitamins) to society in order to build good health and hence prevent illnesses.

This step is not discussed as often as it deserves in my opinion. I am a very strong believer that prevention and health promotion are not only the right things to do to help using the limited societal resources most wisely, but that prevention and health promotion also present really interesting business opportunities for us. See more details on such business opportunities around products and services such as Smart Heart in the blog post from June 9, 2010.

Smart Heart - the risk calculator

Step 2: Green Design

The medicines needed for illnesses that has not been successfully prevented should as far as possibly be designed to have minimal adverse impacts on the environment. A first and often very tricky part of the work is to make the API (active pharmaceutical ingredient) as “green” as possible, e.g. easily degradable. Biopharmaceuticals represent a good opportunity in general here.

I guess we all no that this step presents a lot of difficulties for us. I often say that it is extremely difficult to find medicines that have a valuable therapeutic effect and very low side effects. And to also secure that the design is “green” (e.g. an easily degradable substance that do not show bio-accumulation potential and that has as low toxicity as possible) makes our task extremely challenging…

Step 3: Green Manufacturing and Supply Chain Management

Manufacturing and distribution of pharmaceutical products (i.e. API, excipients and packaging) should be done with minimal adverse environmental impact, no matter of where it is located in the world. This requires green chemistry initiatives around process development and upgraded on-site waste water treatment in order to secure low releases from manufacturing. Industry performs environmental audits of manufacturing operations, regardless whether it is done internally or by third-party manufactures. Proper choice of mode of transport and choice of packaging solutions are other important measures to minimize environmental impact in the global supply chain of pharmaceuticals.

As you are all aware of, a lot of the discussions the last few years regarding environmental impacts from pharmaceuticals has been around manufacturing releases in locations such as India. See for instance my blog post from August 16, 2010. Pharmaceutical manufacturers need to work with programs such as Green Chemistry and Third Party Audits / EHS External Supply to secure minimal environmental impact in the supply chain. Other important initiatives to minimize the environmental impact could be Green Packaging Programs for instance.

Step 4: Green Choices within Health Care and Society

For a sustainable use of pharmaceuticals it is crucial that the use is rational, i.e. not an over nor any under usage, and that patients follow the treatment with high compliance. Together with an increased focus on personalized medicine, such efforts should help keep cassation of pharmaceuticals down. Un-used medicines that nevertheless appear must be managed wisely in close collaboration between all stakeholders. It is also quite clear that health care (e.g. county councils, agencies, and other relevant stakeholders) has a very important role and responsibility to give industry positive incentives for “going green”. Market driven solutions has always shown to be the fastest way for real changes. Hence, green products and green services should be given incentives, e.g. not being substitutable to non-green alternatives within the generic reform, environmentally concerned patients should have the possibility to chose a green alternative without having to pay the full cost, or allowed to have a pricing premium.

Read more on the on-going debate on green pharmaceuticals and green incentives in my blog post from January 18, 2011.

I would appreciate comments from all of you out there in the “blogosphere” regarding this proposal for a “step-wise process ” to secure a sustainable use of pharmaceuticals. It can be a very interesting, and important, discussion!

CSR trends

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What are the major trends when it comes to Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and/or sustainability? Part of the answer to that is given by one of my favourite “newsletters” today, CSR-i-praktiken.se (unfortunately for foreign readers, it is in Swedish…).

CSR-i-praktiken met with 5 experts from different sectors and regions around the world, discusing about CSR-trends and came up with the following:

James Goodman, at Forum for the Future, talkes about the growth in Africa and the opportunities for green products on the African continent. He also believes that biodiversity will become more and more important for companies and finally that “consumer power” will play a more and more important role. I can only agree with James on this. I strongly believe in, and really hope for, a continuing growth in Africa and the opportunities this presents for the people living in Afriuca but also for companies around the world. From a pharmaceutical industry perspective the unmet medical needs in Africa are enormous but there are a lot of challenges to be managed to meet those needs. Read about my experiences from looking into the health care sector in Uganda in October 2010.

When it comes to biodiversity I think it is obvious to many of us that this topic will be “as hot” as the climate change issue. The world has huge challenges there and industry has to collaborate with other stakeholders in society to help solving the problems. Biodiversity is critical to the pharamceutical industry, just remember the high numbers of drugs today with substances coming from nature. And as you know, I am a strong believer in “consumer power”, and always want to see “market driven solutions”. See for instance the ongoing discussions on “green incentives” for pharmaceuticals.

Åsa Pettersson from Vattenfall thinks e.g. that the tough financial situations for many companies will draw focus to “cost saving sustaianbility solutions”. One area where this is absolutely true is energy saving programs and climate change initiatives. As I have dscussed here on the blog before Pfizer’s climate change efforts have resulted in a huge decrease in greenhouse gas emissions, which to a large parts equals to lower energy costs.

43% reduction between 2000 and 2007

Alex Macintosh, at Ecomundi Ventures, sees trends on increased transparency and on more “matured CSR strategies”. CSR becomes an intregrated part of the business. Once again I fully agree. You can read about my thinking on CSR and business strategies and see how CSR is part of the business within our operations in the so-called Walderik-Mattson pyramid.

Walderik-Mattson pyramid

I also appreciate that Martin Schmidt, from Serious Nature, clearly stresses the importance of industry initiatives within the sustainability area. He says that regulatory changes are slow, but he sees a lot of good initiatives coming from industry. Once again I like to relate that to the discussions on “green incentives” as a faster, and probably more efficient, way to see changes within the pharmaceutical sector than regulatory initiatives (e.g. GMP-regulatory changes).

And then finally Katarina Pelin, from the city of Malmö, talkes about the importance that publicly owned operations supports private initiatives. I am a very strong supporter of collaborations between all different stakeholders in society. We can only reach our common goals if we collaborate. Katarina also talks about how more and more social sustainability initiatives are added to the environmental sustainability initaitives on the agendas. My perspective on this is that social sustainability is not only added to the agenda, but environmental and social sustainability efforts are actually more and more combined into joint initiatives. Pfizer’s work on Access to clean water is one good example on such an initiative.

Year-end is coming up…

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Snow in my back yard...

It is December, and we are having a very snowy winter here in Sweden. The year-end is approaching and you cannot avoid looking back on the year that has passed and the year that will come.

Professionally for me, 2010 has been dominated by discussions about the MPA report on “stricter environmental standards” from December 2009. I have discussed the report here on the blog several times during 2010, e.g. May 31, May 5, April 27, Feb 8, and Jan 28. And as you may recall, the topic became more widely discussed, i.e. outside the community of “stakeholders in the pharma and health care sector”, through the articles in Forskning och Framsteg and Veckans Affärer in August and September. As you understand if you read my blog posts regarding these articles (Aug 16 and Sept 10 respectively) I was very happy to see that those articles did not take the “easy way out” just blaming the industry, but actually clearly pointed to what I believe is a major root cause, namely the never-ending increased pressure on price…

We have from the industry been very clear that we like to participate in all discussions with MPA and other relevant stakeholders regarding legislative initiatives as propsed by MPA in their report from Dec 2009 (e.g. environmental requirements in GMP). However, we do strongly believe that market driven measures are more efficient and much faster to implement. Hence, an overview of the reimbursement system and the generic reform, is high on our list. I am sure that 2011 will include a lot of discussions on this topic. I know that industry will discuss it with MPA as a follow up on their report, but also as an important part of the Swedish National Pharmaceutical Strategy, which will be developed during spring 2011. You can read more about the Pharmaceutical Strategy on my blog post from Dec 12 and via this link.

It will be an interesting process to work with all different stakeholders in Swedish health care on Sustainable Development, one of 5 focus areas in the Pharmaceutical Strategy. We will look into not only the environmental perspective on sustainability, but also the social perspective. One part of the social dimension is health promotion and illness prevention, topics that I have discussed at the blog during 2010, e.g. Nov 16, Aug 24, June 9, and March 29. The discussion will be intensified during 2011.

What more to remember from 2010? Well, of course what probably can be seen as a life changing experience for me. In October, I spent a week in Uganda looking into three of our global core CSR-programs, namely Infectious Diseases Institute, International Trachoma Initiative, and the Diflucan Partnership.

Infectious Diseases Institute

It was extremely interesting and I was deeply touched by the people we met and the things we saw. I hope that you followed my trip via the blog. If you didn’t, or if you want to recall what happened, read the blog posts from Oct 19, Oct 20, Oct 21, and Oct 24. I have to admit that I was very proud of the difference that Pfizer makes for the people in Uganda and other third world countries that do not have a functioning health care systems in place. It is literally the difference between life and death.

Another thing that made me proud during 2010 was the award presented to me by Pharma Network, “Pharma Person of the Year“.

Proud award winner

The nomination read as follows:

“Bengt Mattson receives the award due to his work during several years to put the environmental issue as a more and more important topic on the pharmaceutical industry’s agenda”

Of course, that makes me proud. And 2010 became even more satisfying when I in addition to the Pharma Network award also bacame the “Bengt Danielsson lecturer 2010“. An award established by the Swedish Academy of Pharmacutical Sciences (in Swedish: Apotekarsocieteten) in 1989 to recall Professor Bengt Danielsson’s long commitment to pharmaceutical education.

Being proud again...

I cannot summarize the year 2010 without mentioning Dizza Tobak. The tobacco prevention project, that we run together with our partners SAMBA and A Non Smoking Generation is fun and so rewarding. To work with kids, and being infected by their energy and enthusiasm is a privilege. Their task is to produce the best anti-tobacco campaign ever, and looking into some of the uploaded contributions from 2010, they are definitely on their way. Do not forget to view our flash-mob from the central station… It will be so fun to see what they come up with during 2011.

Obviously 2010 was a year when a lot of things happened. I have probably forgot several things worth mentioning, but I just have to stop sometime… 2011 will probably be as interesting. But before entering into 2011, let me close 2010 by showing two drawing from two kids in Solletuna, taking part in the traffic safety program we sponsor (in Swedish: Skolbarnens Trafikkalender). I ended my blogging in 2008 and 2009 in a similar way. So with the experiences and wisdom of Viktor Oroug and

Watch out for cars...

Kajsa Alexandersson I wish you all a good ending of 2010 and a Happy New Year 2011.

30 km per hour, fast enough

And as always,

…För övrigt anser jag att hälsa bör finnas med på schemat…

ISO 26000

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Så har då äntligen ISO 26000, standarden för socialt ansvarstagande (eller samhällsansvar som jag personligen egentligen tycker är en bättre översättning av social responsibility) antagits. Man kan läsa om ISO 26000 i mängder med nyhetsbrev för närvarande. Bland annat skrivet MiljöRapporten om standarden i sitt senaste nummer.

Huvudinnehållet i ISO 26000 kan sammanfattas i följande rubriker:

- Verksamhetsstyrning: Dessa krav torde vara relativt enkla att hantera för de organisationer som redan tidigare har implementerat ledningssystem av typen ISO 9000 och ISO 14000.

- Mänskliga Rättigheter: Krav kring grundläggande rättigheter på arbetet och hur missförhållanden skall hanteras.

- Arbetsrätt: Krav kring anställning och anställningsstatus, hälsa och säkerhet och andra typer av arbetsmiljöaspekter, samt kring kompetensutveckling.

- Miljö: Krav kring yttre miljöaspekter såsom förebyggande av förorening och hållbart resursutnyttjande.

- Rättvisa affärsmetoder: Krav kring anti-korruptionsarbete, öppen konkurrens och respekt för äganderätten.

- Konsumetfrågor: Krav kring korrekt marknadsföring, hållbar konsumtion och konsumentens hälsa och säkerhet.

- Engagemang i och utveckling av lokalsamhället: Krav kring krav kring sociala investeringar, utbildning och kultur, samt hälsa.

Personligen tycker jag att det är mycket bra att de olika perspektiv på samhällsansvar som beskrivs i ISO 26000 är i god överensstämmelse med redan etablerade initiativ såsom de tio principerna i FN:s Global Compact. Inom Pfizer har vi redan skapat en struktur kring vårt samhällsansvar, eller ansvarsfullt företagande som vi också ibland kallar det, som baseras på Global Compacts struktur.

Och som jag skrev här på bloggen i onsdags så kan du läsa mer om hur Pfizer jobbar med hållbarhet i praktiken, och i enlighet med en modell som passar just vår företagskultur, exempelvis på blogginlägget från 29 mars, 2010. För mer information kring det miljörelaterade CSR-arbetet kan jag rekommendera bland annat blogginlägget från 18 februari, 2010.

World’s healthiest nation…

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Vilket land i världen uppvisar “bäst hälsa”? Kanske inte så lätt att svara på, även om många studier som gjorts pekar på att länderna i Norden samt exempelvis Kanada och ett par andra länder ligger bra till för denna utmärkelse. Jag vet dock att Finland tänker försöka lägga beslag på titeln, det finns flera saker som tydligt visar detta:

Pfizer Finland driver tillsammans med över 200 andra organisationer och myndigheter i Finland arbetet med att göra Finland till “world’s healthiest nation by 2015″. Vilket underbart mål att jobba för!

Bilden ovan är från en annons från den finska sjuksköterskeföreningen som uppmanar finnar att göra hälsosammare val. Kampanjen syns överallt i Finland med olika annonser som uppmanar finnarna att förbättra sin hälsa och sitt välmående genom att gå i trapporna istället för att ta hissen, att gå till jobbet och till affären istället för att ta bilen, samt att sluta röka.

Och att man menar allvar med tobaksmotståndet i Finland bevisas av den nya tobakslag som president Tarja Halonen skrev på i förra veckan. Läs mer om detta på A Non Smoking Generations generalsekreterares, Fredrik Söderhielm, blogg och på tobaksfakta.se:

“Förbud för exponering av tobaksvaror i butikerna, med undantag för butiker som nästan enbart säljer tobak. Det blir straffbart att köpa ut eller överlåta tobak till minderåriga. Det blir också förbjudet, men inte straffbart, att bjuda en minderårig på tobak. Minderåriga förbjuds att inneha tobak. Innehav blir inte straffbart och ska inte övervakas av polisen, utan förbudet ska vara ett stöd för handledare i skolor, ungdomsarbete och idrottsföreningar. Handlare som säljer tobak till minderåriga ska kunna få fängelse upp till sex månader, men huvudvikten läggs vid indragna detaljhandelstillstånd. Finland har sedan 2009 en lag om licensiering av tobakshandeln som innebär att man måste söka tillstånd för att få sälja tobak. För att minska utsattheten för passiv rökning införs skärpta och tydligare regler för offentliga tillställningar och i bostadsfastigheter. Bostadsbolag ska kunna förbjuda rökning även på gemensamma utomhusområden.  Rökning på hotell förbjuds helt från 2012. Tobaksautomater förbjuds från 2015.”

Detta är väl något att inspireras av i det fortsatta arbetet med tobaksprevention!

Och förresten, Newsweek lär redan ha utsett Finland till “det bästa landet i världen att leva i” baserat på utbildning, livskvalitet och hälsa. Titta på denna länk för att få en inte helt opartisk kommentar till den rankingen… När ni skrattat färdigt åt den något satiriska och ironiska “Newsweek-rapporten”, rekommenderar jag er varmt att ta en titt på Pfizer Kanadas hälsokampanjsida kallad “morethanmedication“. Den typen av satsningar är helt rätt i vårt arbete för en ökad hälsa. För det är ju som Jeff Kindler, vår koncerchef har sagt:

“We have committed to advancing wellness, prevention, treatments and cures, because health is one of the most important investments a society can make. It’s time to move beyond simply helping people get better after they get sick. Shouldn’t we help them keep from getting sick in the first place?”

…För övrigt anser jag att hälsa bör finnas med på schemat…