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Corporate Responsibility Report 2008

Medical governance

GSK is committed to the highest standards of ethical medical practice. This supports our mission to improve the quality of human life by enabling people to do more, feel better and live longer.

Medical governance at GSK is the system of principles, policies and accountabilities that ensures we apply generally recognised principles of good medical science, medical integrity, ethics and standards. It provides a framework to embed the following principles:

• Patient safety is the fundamental operating principle for GSK ahead of commercial or other interests
• Our clinical research is conducted in an objective, scientific and ethical manner which protects and informs patients
• Promotional practices and the information we provide on our products is ethical, accurate and balanced so that our medicines are used appropriately to benefit and minimise the risks for patientss

Medical governance across GSK encompasses the principles,
policies and accountabilities of three areas:

We have a framework for medical governance across all our businesses and our Chief Medical Officer (the most senior physician at GSK) has responsibility and authority for establishing an effective medical governance system. Our Corporate Executive Team members are responsible for the performance of, and compliance with this system within their areas of responsibility.

Our Medical Governance Executive Committee establishes policy for medical governance, subject to approval from the Corporate Executive Team. It also ensures that our medical governance systems are operating effectively. Regional medical directors together with their regional presidents and the country/territory medical directors, ensure our policies and systems for medical governance are understood and complied with in the countries for which they have responsibility.

Read about our patient safety governance framework.