Crucell's responsibility to society

Crucell is deeply committed to being a good corporate citizen: a company that creates significant value for society. Our mission is to make a truly meaningful contribution to global health by directing our proven talent for innovation towards the fight against infectious diseases. An entrepreneurial mind-set and social responsibility go hand-in-hand at Crucell.

We focus on major health threats that demand innovative solutions, striving to lead rather than to follow. Wherever we can, we focus on disease prevention rather than cure, knowing that this approach offers the best protection for societies’ economies as well as for the individuals in these societies. We focus, too, on business growth and operational excellence, so that we can deliver sustainable benefits to all our stakeholders—from the people who use our healthcare products to those who invest in our company.

By running Crucell ‘with a warm heart and a cool head’, we aim to generate sustainable profit, measured in both healthcare and financial terms. Revenues from product sales, technology licensing and partnerships are reinvested in our innovation and discovery programs, the acceleration of new product development in our research & development (R&D) pipeline, and activities to expand access to our marketed products. Savings derived from greater operational efficiency are also used to further Crucell’s core business of healthcare innovation. Fuelling this virtuous cycle of business and health benefits is Crucell’s primary corporate social responsibility.

“ By running Crucell ‘with a warm heart and a cool head’, we aim to generate sustainable profit, measured in both healthcare and financial terms.”

“ We work to bring significant benefit to the lives of people worldwide by recognizing our wider responsibility to society.”

We are committed to conducting our business with integrity, in a way that respects the rights and needs of our large network of stakeholders, inside and outside the company. We value—and invest in—being a company that talented people want to work with and for.

We want to help protect our planet by minimizing our environmental footprint and making sustainable practices a priority in our company. At present, Crucell is the smallest of the major vaccine companies—though growing very fast—and therefore our manufacturing operations are relatively modest. However, we are committed to identifying and seizing opportunities to improve performance in this area. This also means working proactively in anticipation of future growth.

We also place great value on doing more to benefit society than we strictly ‘must’ do in accordance with Crucell’s mission: bringing innovation to global health. This commitment embraces everything from the sharing of scientific knowledge to community outreach programs.

Crucell works to bring significant benefit to the lives of people worldwide. This requires constructive interaction with a large number of stakeholders, including employees, legislators, investors, policy makers, business partners, licensees, suppliers, customers and organizations dedicated to sustainability issues.

Our external stakeholders are far too numerous to mention, but in the interests of transparency here is a shortlist of key examples.

• Legislators: US Food and Drug Administration, European Medicines Agency, and national regulatory authorities.
• Investors: the Dutch association of investors for sustainable development, Johnson & Johnson, Aviva.
• Policy makers: World Health Organization (WHO), Pan American Health Organization (PAHO), GAVI Alliance.
• Business partners: Johnson & Johnson, DSM Biologics, Merck, Novartis, sanofi pasteur, Wyeth and MedImmune.
• Customers: Supranational purchasing organizations such as Unicef (on behalf of developing countries); public and/or private health organizations in developed countries.
• Sustainability organizatons: Dow Jones Sustainability Index, Carbon Disclosure Project.

We choose our business partners carefully, seeking above all a shared commitment to business integrity and healthcare innovation. We require our suppliers to comply with the Crucell Code of Conduct, our commitment to adhere to the highest ethical and legal standards in all aspects of our business.

Our ambition is to make sustainability issues an integral part of our ongoing dialogue with stakeholders. During 2009 we laid the basis for realizing this, for example by establishing a global procurement policy that will enable continuous improvement in responsible supply chain management.

As part of the rebranding process leading to the launch of the global Crucell identity in November 2009, Crucell asked a diverse group of stakeholders (approximately 30; half internal and half external) for feedback on how they perceive Crucell in relation to CSR issues. The external participants included representatives of a non-governmental organization, a distributor, business partners, travel clinics, the nursing profession, an employment agency and a financial analyst, among others.

The survey results showed that stakeholders generally perceive Crucell as a responsible corporate citizen. All found CSR to be an important issue for Crucell, particularly in view of its core business. They felt that Crucell should do more to raise awareness of its CSR activities and to communicate these activities. This advice has helped to shape the development of Crucell’s CSR policy and plan. We see this example of stakeholder engagement as a first step towards establishing an active dialogue about CSR issues with our stakeholders worldwide.