10 Healthcare Players aiming Beyond Health Equality to Conquer Health Equity

Health Equity: A Virtuous Cycle

Pharmaceutical and life sciences companies has unlocked new opportunities, help underserved patients, and build a cycle of trust to drive a virtuous cycle

• Analyse (High Quality Data)
  Consider the information and data we have now
   
• Expand (Problem Solving)
  Consider whose problems we have been solving

• Challenge (Targeted Approaches)
  ​Consider why some groups are not receiving the appropriate medicine or therapy at the right time
   
• Engage (Better Collaboration)
  Consider whom else we can collaborate with to fill the identified gaps, & how we can encourage more people to receive needed care

Factors Manifesting Health Equity

Intricately complicated health disorders can progress, and access disparities, unmet needs, or marginalized communities can all be signs of health inequities

• Unmet Needs
  Lack of adequate alignment between innovation initiatives and the global burden of disease
   
• Limited Access
  Patients who are unable to access or afford needs like wholesome food, suitable treatment, or essential medications
   
• Underserved Communities
  Determinants of ecological health (including payers and providers) failing to engage groups appropriately for the needs of group members

Healthcare Players Aiming Healthcare Equity

• Bayer
  • Bayer’s U.S. business nabbed a perfect score from the Human Rights Campaign Foundation’s Corporate Equality Index
  • Helps boost the overall ranking from alva for the company, which also has a major focus on food and nutrition and agriculture
  • ​Bayer also works with the new Women in STEM leadership pilot program across 12 countries that the Pistoia Alliance recently announced
     
• Gilead
  • Gilead repurposing Ebola drug remdesivir as the first treatment for COVID boosted its overall reputation last year
  • ​Gilead launched Zeroing In: Ending the HIV Epidemic, which gifted $24 million in grants to 116 organizations in 41 countries to tackle the problem on the ground
  • The company wants to hire or promote 200 Black Americans without a four-year degree while also increasing Hispanic representation to 15% of its U.S. workforce and 3.7% of leadership roles and boosting female leadership representation to 39%
• Sanofi
  • The Paris-based company has launched an Employee Resource Group (ERG) framework in which voluntary, employee-led ERGs will focus on five areas—gender, generations, pride, ability and culture and origins
  • Sanofi’s DE&I strategy 2025 goals revolve around three key pillars: building representative leadership, creating a work environment where employees can bring their whole selves and engaging with the company’s diverse communities
     
• Bristol Myers Squibb
  • BMS has been at the forefront of the fight to boost diversity by issuing $7.9Mn of health equity grants to 24 U.S. nonprofit organizations aimed at improving access and quality care to medically underserved patients and communities
  • BMS until 2025 will accelerate five diversity and inclusion and health equity commitments—addressing disparities in healthcare, increasing diversity in clinical trials, expanding supplier diversity, enhancing employee giving to social justice organizations and increasing workforce representation
     
• Johnson & Johnson
  • 2022 was Year 1 of the pharma’s Health for Humanity 2025 plan
  • The program comes with 20 key goals like boosting women in management, greater diversity in senior teams and improving health equity by developing treatments for underserved HIV and tuberculosis patient communities
  • By 2025, the pharma has pledged to have 50% of management positions globally made up of women and also 35% ethnic/racial diversity in U.S. management positions
     
• Merck
  • To boost diversity in its clinical trials, Merck is working to build new partnerships with organizations like Black Health Matters, the National Urban League and the Lazarex Cancer Foundation
  • The company granted voluntary licenses to several Indian generic manufacturers in an effort to boost the availability of molnupiravir in India and in other low- and middle-income countries
  • Also teamed up with Johnson & Johnson to scale up production of J&J's single-shot COVID vaccine to help expand global access
     
• Pfizer
  • Pfizer recently teamed up with trial site network Headlands Research to break ground on several new research sites in diversely populated areas. A new Headlands facility is set to take root in Brownsville, Texas—a city of about 180,000 on the border of Mexico
  • Pfizer has joined the Paradigm for Parity coalition, aiming to achieve “full gender parity” by 2030, with a near-term goal of women holding at least 30% of senior roles
     
• AstraZeneca
  • The Anglo-Swedish Big Pharma's strategy includes two 2025 goals: to reach gender equality in management positions and to launch supplier diversity programs in 10 new countries outside the US
  • AstraZeneca also participates in the Pistoia Alliance’s new Women in STEM leadership pilot program to enable leadership and mentoring skill development while furthering workplace diversity
     
• Takeda
  • Takeda launched the Center for Health Equity and Patient Affairs (HEPA) as a center of excellence in 2021 and hopes to make it a leader in health equity and patient centricity to “create a more inclusive ecosystem and strengthen trust and reputation with patients and other key external stakeholders around the world
  • Takeda is also looking to roll out an enterprise-wide Candidate Relationship Management tool connected with an Applicant Tracking System that it hopes will “create inclusive talent communities”
     
• Biogen
  • Biogen created a new four-point plan to focus on building a more diverse workforce “at all levels” as well as “building awareness, capability and a sustained urgency to act”