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We work with partner organisations around the
world to ensure that the right blend of expertise is applied to
each of our programmes, and we select partners who have the best
experience and skills for each initiative. Programmes are selected
on the basis of community need, not for their potential impact on
GSK’s commercial business or to increase sales of our products.
We fund programmes that are measurable, sustainable and replicable
and we work closely with our partners to ensure their success16.
WORLDWIDE COMMUNITY CONTRIBUTION
GSK’s community investment and charitable contributions
in 2002 totalled £239 million, of which £112 million
was related to the company’s Patient Assistance Program for
financially disadvantaged patients in the US. Our corporate regional
public health and humanitarian relief programmes aim to serve communities
with the greatest needs. To meet local needs GSK operating companies
also support numerous local community programmes.
GSK product donations for humanitarian relief are
made through charitable partner organisations that have experience
in delivering humanitarian relief. These charities decide where
and when our product donations are most needed, and work with governments
of recipient countries to ensure that they arrive safely and are
distributed appropriately. For example, a donation of almost half
a million treatments of our antibiotic Augmentin was part
of an airlift of vital medicines into Tajikistan in October 2002
organised by Project HOPE17.
Already struggling to overcome the effects of civil war, Tajikistan
has been further challenged by a decade of steady immigration of
refugees from Afghanistan. As a member of the Partnership for Quality
Medical Donations, GSK has fully endorsed and agreed to follow the
WHO Guidelines for Drug Donations18.
Our public health programmes are directed to areas
where specific diseases are prevalent. This means that our HIV/AIDS
community programme, Positive Action, has global reach; our effort
to eliminate the parasitic disease, lymphatic filariasis, is focused
on endemic countries in the developing world; and our African Malaria
Partnership is directed to the continent that bears the greatest
burden of the disease (see African
Malaria Partnership).
In the developed world too, our community programmes
support communities in need. Our SHARE programme in the US and Canada
targets health in elderly, racial and ethnic minority communities.
We are providing monetary awards for innovation and sharing best
practice on reducing health inequality among these vulnerable groups19.
  
 In
the UK, as part of a broad commitment to science education, we have
committed up to £1 million over four years to fund INSPIRE
(INnovative Scheme for Post-docs In Research and Education), a programme
to boost science education in school20.
This supports selected schools applying to become Science Colleges
under the UK government’s Specialist Schools Programme.
GSK provides support in many different ways, for
example, through donating money, products, and other in-kind donations
such as office furniture, computers and surplus laboratory equipment.
Our product donations are valued at wholesale acquisition
cost which relates to the price GSK charges wholesalers and warehousing
chains, not the retail price.
The company follows the London Benchmarking Group21
model of recording our community investments. This recognised model
provides a standard basis for companies to manage and report their
commitments to the community.
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