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• Q&A with Chairman

Q&A with Chairman

Sir Christopher Gent is Non-Executive Chairman of GlaxoSmithKline and Chairman of our Corporate Responsibility Committee. Here he answers questions on corporate responsibility at GSK and gives his view on future priorities and challenges for the company.

Q&A

Q. What does corporate responsibility mean for GSK? Why is it important?
A. Corporate responsibility is about how we engage with society. It's all embracing, particularly for GSK as a pharmaceutical and healthcare company. For us CR is 'built in, not bolt on'. CR concerns issues such as our ethical conduct, animal research, conducting and publishing trials, sales and marketing, employment practices, as well as our performance on access to medicines, sustainability and the environment. It includes our community partnerships, although it is about much more than philanthropy.

Q. How does CR fit into GSK's business strategy?
A. Our company mission is to make people feel better and live longer – the connections to CR are very obvious and fundamental. I don't see a need for a separate 'CR strategy' because CR is so integrated into the purpose of our business and the way we do business. For example, the issue of access to medicines is one of the four cornerstones of our business strategy.

Q. What are the most significant CR challenges?
A. We made good progress this year on some key challenges such as R&D into new treatments and vaccines with particular benefits for developing countries. Our pre-pandemic vaccine for flu came to fruition and we committed to donate 50 million doses to the World Health Organization for use in poor countries. More patients in developing countries were treated with anti-retrovirals supplied by GSK at not-for-profit prices or by our generic licencees.

But other significant responsibility challenges remain unresolved. We are seeing attempts by stakeholders to weaken intellectual property (IP) and extend not-for-profit pricing to a wider range of medicines and to countries beyond the Least Developed Countries. On IP we believe that robust protection is essential to incentivise much-needed R&D. On pricing, we understand that countries with very low healthcare budgets want breakthrough medicines at the lowest possible cost. But we can't sustain the R&D necessary to create medicines if we have to deliver everything at a not-for-profit price. Wealthier countries should not expect to receive the same prices as the world's poorest. Finding the right balance between access and innovation is very complex and will remain a major challenge, but we are committed to working with governments and other stakeholders to achieve it.

I believe we did better this year at communicating about responsibility issues to NGOs and others outside the company. However, while we made good progress on enhancing our reputation through greater transparency and responding to stakeholder needs, there's no doubt that this suffered a setback following the adverse publicity on Avandia. We remain committed to communicating transparently with stakeholders on this and other complex issues.

Q. The pharmaceutical 'blockbuster' business model is being challenged. How do you see this affecting CR?
A. There has been a dearth of breakthrough medicines across the industry in recent years. It's not enough to produce a drug that is slightly better than its predecessor. People need to understand that we're researching drugs that bring major medical advances or we won't gain the support of the people who pay for our products.

This is a challenge for the whole industry and one that is causing many companies to think about changes to the business model, including GSK.

The changes in our R&D organisation are producing a strong pipeline and I'm confident we will address the challenge of bringing significant new medicines to market.

Q. GSK recently announced a restructuring programme. What are the CR implications?
A. We operate in a dynamic and challenging environment – although we try to manage with foresight sometimes we have to take difficult decisions. When proposed measures that include job redundancies are brought to the Board our first thought is of the potential impact on people within the business. We are focusing on communicating and consulting with these employees and their representatives. We have a constructive relationship with employees and I believe they understand the nature of the business environment we operate in and why these changes are required.

Q. What are the future CR priorities and opportunities for GSK?
A. I expect challenges to the intellectual property system and demands to extend preferential prices to middle-income countries to remain key issues. We'll need to innovate and test out new solutions to these problems. Partnerships with governments and other stakeholders are likely to play a key role.

On product safety I expect us to continue to be proactive in our communications with patients as well as regulators. When we identify potential issues with one of our medicines we have to communicate this information appropriately.

We've also got to maintain our focus on upholding high standards in sales and marketing.

Sustaining our commitment to transparency will remain a priority. We need to build trust by being open about what we do. This matters for all businesses but especially one like ours which has such an integrated role in society. I anticipate our engagement with stakeholders will intensify and hope this will increase understanding and support for what we are trying to achieve.

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