Through our lobbying and public policy activity we monitor proposed legislative reforms, policy developments and concerns from government officials, NGOs and other organisations. We aim to support programmes that encourage scientific innovation and balance the interests of business with those of others. We also work with patient and professional groups to help their members gain a stronger voice on healthcare.

We aim to demonstrate that all our interactions with political stakeholders and patient advocacy groups are conducted appropriately, ethically and transparently. We publish our criteria for working with public policy groups to give clarity on our approach.

Patient advocacy

Medicines and vaccines bring significant benefits for individual patients and for public health. In order to realise these benefits we need to interact with external groups throughout the research, development and marketing of our medicines and vaccines. This enables us to use the expertise of patients, scientists, doctors and other healthcare professionals to better understand how to conduct the most effective research, how to make treatment advances and how to meet patient needs.

In some instances these interactions involve GSK providing funding to an organisation or an individual. We know these relationships can cause concern and we therefore aim to be transparent about the payments we make and what they are for.

Patient group funding

We provide funding to patient groups to help with day-to-day running costs and defined events or activities. Our support also includes educational assistance, training for staff, and collaboration on disease awareness and prevention projects. Our relationships with patient groups help us to better understand patient needs and their illnesses, which guides our R&D. In turn, our support helps patient opinions to be heard in the healthcare debate.

Find details of our work with patient groups in our US, Europe, Asia Pacific, and Emerging Markets regions, as well as what funding we provide for patient groups working globally.

Publishing payments, grants and donations

We make payments to healthcare professionals, organisations and institutions that include:

Speaking services – we pay healthcare professionals to speak at meetings and conferences about our products and disease/therapy areas that are relevant to us

Advisory panels – we convene advisory panels with healthcare professionals to seek advice on a range of issues relevant to our R&D business

Conducting research – we make payments to independent institutions and healthcare professionals for their help in conducting research on diseases and potential new treatments

Medical education – we provide grants and donations to independent medical education providers to support initiatives that are designed to close healthcare professional performance gaps and improve patient health.

These services are valuable to our business and to improving patients’ health, and we believe professionals should be fairly compensated if they provide services and expertise to us. However, payments must not be excessive and support must never be an inducement or reward for prescribing our products.

We currently publish the payments we make to healthcare professionals in the USA on a quarterly basis on our US website, and have done so since December 2009. We are working towards disclosure in our other markets.

Charitable giving

Our community investment aims to improve health education and increase access to medicines and healthcare services. We target support where we can make the most difference.

We are transparent about our charitable giving and report global figures in our Annual Report and Corporate Responsibility Report. You can download information about our annual grants over £10,000 ($20,000) on our Charitable grants page.