Ethics

When a business activity touches people’s lives and health, it must be unconditionally implemented in a responsible and ethically correct manner. To ensure proper implementation, Meda applies an integrated policy known as its Business Conduct Guidelines for all operations. This policy is updated continuously.

The policy covers (i) Meda’s ongoing environmental management and (ii) all supplier relationships; ethical and environmental factors play a highly valued roll in business relationships.

The policy also explains situations to employees in which they might risk making decisions that could inappropriately benefit themselves or the company. Meda’s ethical rules expressly forbid all forms of gifts, bribes, or similar to customers, public authorities, or competitors that aim to create an advantage for Meda. Any breach of this constitutes grounds for immediate dismissal. Similarly, attempts to influence political parties and candidates through donations are not permitted.

Competition legislation

In many countries, competition legislation ensures that pharmaceuticals and other goods are sold to customers at the best possible price. Collaborations or agreements with competitors regarding prices, terms, or similar conditions risk breaching competition legislation, which is counter to Meda’s policy. In addition, Meda’s employees are prohibited from making false, misleading, or demeaning statements about individuals, organizations, or their products and services.

Public authorities and agencies

Meda’s policy is to ensure that all information (both oral and written) provided to public authorities and agencies is truthful, correct, and complete. Meda’s staff, partners, associates, and stakeholders may not provide false, fictitious, or incorrect information to any public authority or agency or withhold significant
facts when providing information.

Animal studies

Despite considerable pharmaceutical industry advances to find alternative methods to animal studies during pharmaceutical development, these studies are unavoidable and obligatory in certain instances.

As a specialty pharma company, Meda’s development is essentially concentrated to clinical studies in a late phase, which means that the drugs concerned have already been tested on people several times. In 2009, Meda performed a total of three studies that involved animals—a number that is almost nonexistent in an industry comparison. In cases in which animal studies are required, Meda observes an internal policy that was updated in 2008. This policy means that Meda follows Good Laboratory Practice per ISO 15189 and guidelines in OECD Principles of Good Laboratory Practice.