Human Rights

Management Approach

One of our long-established core values – respect for people – guides us to maintain and uphold an environment built on mutual respect, openness and individual integrity. This includes our concern for all people who touch or are touched by our company – patients, customers, employees, shareholders, partners, suppliers and communities. Our purpose of making life better guides our commitment to ensure employees, partners and suppliers uphold our values and respect human rights as we work together to improve lives.

Lilly signed on to the United Nations Global Compact in 2009 and is committed to the UNGC’s Ten Principles on respecting internationally proclaimed human rights, labor, environment and anti-corruption.

Ethical Foundation

Lilly is committed to upholding high standards of corporate conduct. We earn the trust and respect of our customers, regulators and the general public through the manner in which we conduct our business and their resulting experiences. We believe in supporting the inherent rights of all people, regardless of where they were born, where they live, ethnicity, race, gender, sexual orientation or disability.

Our code of business conduct – called The Red Book – and our policies, compliance management systems, HR performance and promotion systems, training programs and communications initiatives are designed to work together to reinforce a culture of integrity and ethical behavior. This commitment to act legally and ethically, following both the letter and the spirit of the laws, regulations, policies and procedures that govern our business, includes various aspects of human rights.

Learn more in Business Ethics.

Workplace

Making life better starts with everyday acts of respect and inclusion for all people. We work together to create an environment where people feel valued and where they can use their diverse backgrounds, experiences, skills and perspectives in support of our purpose.

Across our own operations, we support human rights by:

Offering fair and competitive employment practices, including wages and benefits
Promoting a safe and healthy workplace
Fostering a more diverse, equitable and inclusive work environment, where discrimination, harassment and retaliation are not tolerated
Cultivating diverse talent through the recruitment and hiring process, learning and development, and the advancement and retention of people with wide-ranging backgrounds and experiences.

Learn more in Employee Experience and Diversity, Equity and Inclusion. And see our recent recognitions that include a perfect score on the Corporate Equality Index from the Human Rights Campaign Foundation and being named among the World’s Most Ethical Companies by Ethisphere.

Supplier Code of Conduct

Our suppliers help us earn and maintain trust and respect. We also expect our suppliers to uphold Lilly values and standards as outlined in our Supplier Code of Conduct. In 2011, we revised our global standards and procedures to include specific language about human rights, including our expectation that our vendors abide by Lilly’s human rights standards.

We rely on our suppliers and contract manufacturing operations to ensure the ongoing availability of our medicines. As our manufacturing base has grown, we’ve taken significant steps designed to reduce our exposure to risks inherent in managing a global supply chain.

We continue to strengthen efforts to monitor our supply chain for quality and health, safety and environmental (HSE) risks. We have taken steps to educate and engage our suppliers directly on HSE issues and to help them build expertise around HSE topics. This includes our ongoing work as part of the Pharmaceutical Supply Chain Initiative (PSCI), which helps outline what the pharmaceutical industry expects from its supply chain. Lilly was an inaugural member of PSCI, which created and maintains the Pharmaceutical Industry Principles for Responsible Supply Chain Management. These principles address five areas of supplier performance standards: ethics, labor, health and safety, environment and management systems. Lilly’s Supplier Code of Conduct reflects the PSCI principles.

We require that our suppliers source materials responsibly and abstain from procuring materials from conflict areas or sources including the Democratic Republic of Congo.

See Supply Chain Management to learn more.

Safeguarding Patients

From early discovery through drug development, as well as while a product is on the market, Lilly works to ensure the safety and effectiveness of our medicines. Our R&D efforts and clinical trials are developed and administered in ways that support our commitment to human rights.

One of the primary responsibilities of Lilly researchers and the medical professionals who conduct our clinical trials is the safety of study participants. Participant safety and well-being is monitored throughout each clinical trial. In addition, Ethics Review Boards, a team of people independent from the research, review every clinical trial to ensure appropriate steps are taken to protect the rights and welfare of participants before enrollment, and they maintain independent oversight over each clinical trial throughout its duration. Learn more in Patient Safety.

We believe diverse representation in clinical trials is critical and helps our researchers ensure we develop medicines that can be as effective as possible for the patients who use them. Many factors impact how someone will respond to a treatment, including their genetic background, ethnicity, gender and lifestyle, so it is important to enroll a diverse range of people in clinical trials for our medicines. Learn more about how we approach diversity in our trials.

Lilly applies a single global standard to the conduct of medical trials involving human subjects. This standard is based on well-respected ethics guidance and other requirements including:

The World Medical Association’s Declaration of Helsinki

The Council for International Organizations of Medical Sciences’ International Ethical Guidelines for Biomedical Research Involving Human Subjects

The International Conference on Harmonisation’s Guideline for Good Clinical Practice

The Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America’s Principles on Conduct of Clinical Trials

Applicable laws and regulations of the country or countries in which a study is conducted.

Lilly conducts clinical studies in countries or communities in which the benefits of research can be made reasonably available for research participants and the host country or community. Learn more about our approach to continued access to investigational medicine and multinational clinical studies.

Protecting People’s Privacy

Lilly is committed to the ethical management of all personal information whether it is that of a customer, an employee or any other individual. Our privacy program reflects our commitment to being open and honest about how we collect, manage, use and disclose personal information, and we’re intentional about protecting it. We take reasonable precautions to protect personal information against loss, theft, misuse, unauthorized access, disclosure, alteration or destruction.

Learn more about how Lilly respects privacy.

Speaking Up

We don’t compromise on issues of integrity. Lilly policy encourages all employees and our suppliers to report known or suspected issues, concerns or behavior that could harm Lilly or those we serve. We foster a culture where all individuals are empowered to speak up and engage with management to identify and implement appropriate continuous improvement.

We recognize that speaking up, even if anonymously, is our right and our responsibility, and that taking no action when action is warranted can have serious consequences. We encourage employees and suppliers to share concerns openly and honestly – including on issues of human rights – knowing that Lilly will not tolerate acts of retaliation for reporting inappropriate conduct, preventing unlawful practices or participating in an investigation.

Learn more about our approach to Business Ethics.