Human Rights

Our approach to human rights reflects both the universal standards we hold ourselves to as a global organization and the responsibilities specific to a healthcare company. The sections that follow describe how we put those standards into practice across six areas:

• advancing access to healthcare, so our medicines reach people regardless of geography or economic circumstance;

• protecting health and safety of clinical trial participants through ethics oversight, safety monitoring, and inclusive and accessible trial design;

• upholding fair labor standards and an inclusive environment across our own workforce;

• extending the same standard to our global supply chain;

• using data and technology, including artificial intelligence, in ways that respect dignity and autonomy; and

• reinforcing all of it through transparency, reporting, and accessible channels for raising concerns.

We strive to embed respect for human rights throughout our business activities and relationships. Our code of business conduct, policies, compliance management systems, human resources performance and promotion systems, training programs and communications initiatives are designed to work together to reinforce a culture of integrity and ethical behavior, including various aspects of human rights. We also expect our suppliers to uphold Lilly values and standards as outlined in our Supplier Code of Business Conduct. Our global standards and procedures include specific language about human rights, including our expectation that our vendors abide by those human rights standards.

Advancing Access to Healthcare

We are committed to advancing equitable and affordable access to healthcare, working to ensure our medicines are able to transform more people’s lives. We’re also committed to expanding our impact on society by addressing complex global health challenges, with a focus on people living in resource-limited communities.

Impacts of Intellectual Property Principles on Access to Medicine

While a well-functioning intellectual property (IP) system is essential to our ability to invest in medicine development, we recognize that the way IP protections are applied has direct implications for people's ability to access the treatments they need, making responsible IP practices an important human rights consideration.

We participate in the IP PACT (IP Principles for Advancing Cures and Therapies), a multi-company initiative that guides how the biopharmaceutical industry applies IP in ways that balance innovation with the needs of patients and society. For Lilly, these commitments reflect our view that IP should serve as a tool for advancing access to medicines, not a barrier to it.

Learn more about our approach to IP in the Innovate topic.

Patient Health and Safety

By researching, developing, and manufacturing medicines, pharmaceutical companies are uniquely positioned to affect patient safety, clinical trial access, and health outcomes at scale.

Bioethics

We maintain a bioethics program to address ethical challenges across pharmaceutical research, development, and commercialization. The program is designed to protect the rights and well-being of research participants and patients while upholding the integrity of the scientific process. Learn more about our approach to Bioethics.

Clinical Trial Safety

Protecting the safety of study participants is central to the work of our researchers and the medical professionals who conduct our clinical trials. Participant safety and well-being are 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 apply a single global standard to the conduct of medical trials involving human subjects. This standard is based on established ethics guidance and other requirements. Learn more about our approach to continued access to investigational medicine and multinational clinical studies.

Clinical Trial Inclusion and Accessibility

Many factors impact how someone will respond to a treatment, including their geography, background, health condition, and life circumstances. To generate safety and efficacy data for the range of patients who bear the burden of disease, the clinical trial patient population should reflect the prevalence of the disease in the community. Learn more about our approach to designing inclusive and accessible clinical trials.

Human Rights Affecting Our Workforce

We work to create an environment where people feel valued and where they can use their varied 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 an inclusive work environment, where discrimination, harassment and retaliation are not tolerated; and

• Cultivating a workforce of people with wide-ranging backgrounds and experiences through recruitment, learning and development, advancement and retention processes, and programs.

Support of Workers' Rights

We fully support standards, as reflected by the laws of the jurisdictions in which we operate, that both adults and children should be free from compulsory or coerced labor, and that people should have the right to associate freely and bargain collectively.

• Forced and Child Labor: We do not employ child labor, or forced or compulsory labor, in any of our facilities globally, and comply with local minimum age laws and requirements.

• Freedom of Association and Right to Collective Bargaining:

  • We recognize the importance of freedom of association in the workplace and respect the right of our employees to join associations of their own choosing. We interact with works councils and unions in several countries, and we support these bodies and work productively with them. The vast majority of our workers globally are not covered under traditional collective bargaining agreements.

  • In some countries where we operate, governments mandate working conditions such as salary increases, minimum wages, bonuses, number of weekly working hours, vacation time and overtime rates. These vary by country, and we follow these mandates wherever they apply.

  • Several of our affiliates have employee councils that meet regularly with management to discuss workforce-related issues that directly impact them, such as company policies and organizational changes. As laws and guidelines change wherever we operate, we will continue to work with employees, advocacy groups and governing bodies to maintain compliance and respect the right of free association.

Human Rights in Our Supply Chain

Lilly relies on suppliers and contract manufacturing organizations to ensure the ongoing availability of our medicines, and expects them to uphold Lilly values and standards, including the human rights standards as outlined in our Supplier Code of Business Conduct. As our manufacturing base has grown, we remain focused on managing risks inherent in our global supply chain. Our Supplier Code of Business Conduct reflects Pharmaceutical Supply Chain Initiative (PSCI) principles addressing five areas of supplier performance standards: ethics, labor, health and safety, environment and management systems.

Conflict Minerals

The mining and trade of certain minerals has been linked to the financing of armed conflict and associated human rights abuses in affected regions, making responsible sourcing of these materials an extension of broader human rights. We are committed to understanding our supply chain and the upstream impacts of our sourcing decisions in order to avoid inadvertently supporting businesses associated with human rights violations.

We expect our suppliers to conduct due diligence on the origin of materials they provide to us and to avoid sourcing those materials from areas linked to conflict or human rights violations. We examine the raw material content of our global commercial products to identify their origin and source, and file annual reports with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on findings pursuant to the SEC's conflict minerals regulations.

Human Rights Related to Ethical Use of Data and Technology

We believe in the ethical management of 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.

We recognize that technology, including artificial intelligence, has the power to advance human well-being but can also affect fundamental human rights if not deployed responsibly. Our use of technology is guided by respect for the dignity, autonomy, and rights of the people we serve or employ.

Learn more about how Lilly respects data privacy.

Transparency and Reporting

We hold ourselves accountable through external commitments and accessible channels for raising concerns. Lilly joined the United Nations Global Compact (UNGC) in 2009 and is committed to the UNGC’s Ten Principles on respecting internationally proclaimed human rights, labor, environment and anti-corruption. Each year we review and reaffirm our commitment to the UNGC Ten Principles and we provide an index of where to find information about our integration of the UNGC principles into our business strategy, culture and daily operations.

Speaking Up

Our policy encourages our employees, suppliers, and stakeholders to report known or suspected concerns, including human rights issues, that could harm Lilly or those we serve. We foster a culture where all individuals are empowered to speak up, knowing that silence when action is warranted can have serious consequences.

Speaking up, even if anonymously, is both a right and a responsibility. We do not tolerate retaliation against anyone who reports inappropriate conduct, helps prevent unlawful practices, or participates in an investigation. The Lilly Ethics and Compliance Hotline is available 24 hours a day to employees and the public globally, subject to local law.

Resources

• Lilly Position Statement on Human Rights

• Supplier Code of Business Conduct

• Lilly Ethics and Compliance Hotline

Related Topics

• Ethics and Compliance

• Inclusion

• Bioethics

• Patient Safety

• Innovate

• Reach

• Corporate Governance

• Supply Chain Management

• Supplier Development

• Employee Well-Being

• Data Privacy

• Responsible Use of AI