What are the key CSR principles of Sanofi Ukraine?
CSR for Sanofi is first and foremost doing business transparently and responsibly. Secondly, the role of our business is to create value for society, not only for our shareholders. We sincerely believe that effective CSR programs always transform society for the better, and respond to the most vital needs of the people.
We’re striving to maximize our international experience of ethical and responsible business performancehere in Ukraine. Ethics and transparency are at the heart of Sanofi’s social responsibility strategy. Thus this year, Sanofi was one of the few pharmaceutical companies that joined the Ukrainian Network of Integrity and Compliance, initiated by the Business Ombudsman Council, and openly declared its transparency. This once again proves that working for the benefit of patients in compliance with legislation is our highest priority.
Our CSR approach, at both the global and local level, is centered on the idea of contributing to the major CSR challenges our world faces today – improving access to healthcare, developing our communities and engaging our employees, ensuring that environmental thinking isa part of our decision-making process, while upholding ethics in allof the projects we implement.
How does the CSR strategy of pharmaceutical company differ from CSR strategies of other businesses?
We aim to protect, enable and empower patients facing health challenges. The leading goals of our daily work are improving access to healthcare and providing patients with support – from preventing diseases to medical treatment. Оn a regular basis, Sanofi Ukraine implements a range of social projects supporting patients with diabetes, rare diseases, hypertension, cancer and central nervous system diseases. We persistently invest our efforts indigital and offline education campaigns designed to increase public awareness of diseases and ways to prevent them.
One of the priority areas of our CSR activities is providing life-saving therapy to those who need it most. Thus, in 2004 Sanofi Genzyme division, which specializes in the development and production of medicines for treating rare diseases, launched an International charity program to give patients with rare diseases access to medicines. Thanks to this program, patients receive life-saving medicines during the period between their diagnosis and when the state starts to provide them with medicines at its expense. Dozens of Ukrainians with rare diseases like Type 1 Mucopolysaccharosis, and Gauche, Pompe and Fabry diseases have already received therapy under Sanofi Genzyme humanitarian program. The company allocates about $5 million annually for the treatment of patients with rare diseases in Ukraine.
Which types of CSR programs have you focused on in 2017?
To inform the society about diabetes, which has become a pandemic in the 21th century, and support patients with diabetes in Ukraine, we’re implementing a large-scale social program called “Act for Diabetes.” It embodies a comprehensive approach to solving the problems caused by the prevalence of the disease, and includes several regular activities: from teaching and supporting patients and their relatives in everyday life, to the raising the professional level of HCPs and sharing personal experience.
The All-Ukrainian Drawing Contest for Children with Diabetes, which we have implemented in partnership with the Association of Pediatric Endocrinologists since 2010, is our key project and our pride. Over the past eight years, we have received more than 4,000 drawings from talented kids from all over Ukraine. With Sanofi’s support, 350 children with diabetes, including the drawing contest winners, have undergone a course of recreation at a specialized treatment center in Myrgorod. Of course, these are not global results, but they affect the lives of certain people, and this is the most important thing for us. The parents of the children who have participated in the contest tell us that the positive emotions from creativity have a positive impact on well-being of their kids, and help them better manage their diseases.
What social benefits does Sanofi Ukraine provide to employees?
We protect and promote the health and well-being of our employees so that they can enjoy fit and healthy lives, both at work and at home. To achieve this, Sanofi designs numerous information campaigns to prevent hypertension, cardiovascular disease, cancer, and diabetes. In addition, company regularly organizes an annual glucose level checking campaign, and a flu vaccination campaign. By offering access to such programs, we can empower our employees to take control of their health and live fuller and happier lives.
What difficulties does Sanofi face running business in Ukraine?
Since March 2017, our company has been the victim of fraudsters who are making attempts to seize a huge amount of money from our accountsby means of forged documents, endorsed by an illegal court ruling. Unfortunately, the proceedings in the Ukrainian courts have been subject to numerous recorded violations and complete ignorance of the company’s arguments and evidence concerning the forgery. As a result, more than UAH 180 million owned by Sanofi Ukraine has been arrested orwithdrawn, based on orders from the State Execution Service. Our company is shocked by such developments and believes it has been the target of a well-planned fraudulent scheme involving representatives ofthe courts and the State Execution Service. Given the amount of funds involved, today Sanofi Ukraine faces the risk of disruptions of its activities in the country. At the very least, this could affect payments to company’s suppliers and disrupt the delivery of medicines to Ukrainian patients.
Ensuring unimpeded access to high-quality innovative medicines for Ukrainian patients is Sanofi Ukraine’s main objective. In order to protect its rights and investments in Ukraine, on Oct.9 our company filed a cassation appeal at the Supreme Economic Court of Ukraine against a court decision that we consider unlawful. In addition, Sanofi Ukraine has notified the Ukrainian government about the initiation of an international investment arbitration case against Ukraine, a mechanism provided by the Bilateral Investment Treaty between France and Ukraine of 1994. The company remains hopeful that Ukraine’s senior state officials would make every effort to ensure there are proper protections for foreign investments in Ukraine, and will prevent the burden of damages repayments falling on Ukrainian taxpayers, should the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes make such a ruling.
