How we create value
Our success depends on our ability to research and develop innovative healthcare products and make them accessible to as many people as possible.
Our mission is to improve the quality of human life by enabling people to do more, feel better and live longer.
Our resources
To deliver our mission we must align all our resources behind our strategic priorities.
We depend on the expertise and enthusiasm of our 98,000 employees to embrace new ways of working and to forge partnerships that can offer fresh insights into how best to combat the world’s healthcare challenges.
We expect everyone to put our values at the heart of their decision making. This means acting transparently, respectfully and with integrity – and putting the interests of patients and consumers first. How we deliver success is just as important as what we achieve.
We have made good progress against our strategic priorities, established in 2008, to grow a diversified, global business, deliver more products of value, and simplify our operating model.
Our businesses
We’re a science-led healthcare company operating in three main areas – Pharmaceuticals, and Vaccines and Consumer Healthcare.
Our operating model
Innovation is key to our success and we have transformed our R&D organisation over recent years to be more agile. Since 2009 we’ve had more medicines approved than any other healthcare company and we have many more in development. We have also implemented different ways of supporting R&D, for example, opening up access to our expertise, our facilities and even some of our intellectual property to collaborate with more than 3,000 external organisations.
To bring these innovations to patients and consumers, we manufacture billions of products to high quality standards and supply them to more than 150 countries worldwide.
Our commercial success depends on market presence, customer understanding and expanding access. We seek to make our products accessible for countries at all levels of income and development. In the Least Developed Countries, this includes capping prices at 25% of developed market levels, and reducing prices through high-volume contracts. In developed markets, we have pioneered novel reimbursement approaches to widen access to our newer medicines and priced these at or below current treatments.
Outputs
Developing innovative products and maximising access to them delivers direct benefit to patients and consumers.
If we do this successfully, it will lead to profitable and sustainable performance. In turn this allows us to generate value and returns for our shareholders and enables us to reinvest in the business so patients and consumers continue to benefit.
Over and above this, wider society benefits since healthy people and communities are essential to building strong, sustainable societies. We also create value by making direct and indirect economic and social contributions in the countries where we operate through tax, employment and charitable support.