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A message from
Matthew Emmens
If you’ve read a Shire CR report
before you’ll notice straightaway
that we’ve adopted a very different
approach this year.
Instead of reporting on the basis of
workplace, marketplace, community
and environment, this year’s report
will focus on the issues that are
particularly important to us as a
specialist pharmaceutical company.
This approach allows us to
concentrate on the areas that are
most relevant to our sector and
where we as a company make the
greatest impact – and take more
account of the questions that our
stakeholders most regularly put
to us. So while Shire takes its
environmental performance seriously,
our impact here is minimal compared
with that of an oil business or a
pharmaceutical company with
substantial manufacturing operations
and we’ve therefore not made
environment a primary focus
of this report.
Focus on our products
The more important issues for
us to address relate directly to the
nature of pharmaceutical products,
their safety and responsible
marketing. These are the aspects
of our business that we care most
about on a day-to-day basis – the
key issues that we have to manage
both from a commercial and a
CR perspective. Likewise our
stakeholders have a right to know
what we are doing about these issues
and how well we are performing on
them, whether that’s our employees,
our investors, or the healthcare
professionals and patients that
we serve.
This report looks at these issues
in detail and follows the life-cycle of
our drugs as they are developed and
tested, then marketed to doctors
and finally used by patients.
We begin with a section on drug
safety, which deals with the early
stages in the development of new
products. The need for and handling
of animal testing is an ongoing issue
for all pharmaceutical companies,
but in the light of the recent clinical
trial in London that went so seriously
wrong, the issue of human trials is
in the spotlight as never before. With
public concern so high, companies
like Shire have a responsibility to
be as open as possible, both about
the approach we take and the
safeguards we put in place to
protect our volunteers.
The second issue we look at is
responsible marketing, which covers
the training and management of
our field sales-force, to ensure that
we always obey both the spirit and
the letter of the regulatory codes
governing the sale of medicines.
This is followed by a section on our
own products, where we talk about
how we manage our drugs when
they are out in the market and the
way we deal with any issues that
arise. There are two particular
stories to tell here for 2005. One
is the way we successfully dealt
with Health Canada’s decision to
withdraw ADDERALL XR from the
market and the other is our campaign
to ensure that Alzheimer’s patients
in the UK continue to get access
to the drugs they need. I’ve been
both impressed and moved by the
dedication that Shire people have
shown in these circumstances – the
way they pulled together as a team
and never lost sight of the fact that
patients are, and always must be,
our first priority, even in the midst
of a crisis.
Dedicated people
It’s become conventional for CEOs
to praise their people in introductions
like this. So it is hard to find words
that don’t sound clichéd. But I don’t
think I’ve ever worked with such
a committed and caring group of
people and this is one reason why
I can be confident that CR is right
at the core of everything we do.
It isn’t and never has been, an
‘add-on’ activity for us. It’s part
of the way we do things at Shire,
from R&D, to sales, to business
functions like communications
and Human Resources.
The acquisition of Transkaryotic
Therapeutics Inc. (TKT) is another
great example of CR within Shire at
work. This was a major event for Shire
in 2005 and what stood out for me
wasn’t just the fact that it was clearly
the right deal for Shire, at the right
time, but also that we managed both
the human and the commercial
aspects in the right way. We made
enormous efforts to bring what is
now called Shire Human Genetic
Therapies (Shire HGT) into the heart
of the Group as quickly as possible,
without diluting their own sense of
identity and culture.
There was an extensive program
of communication, local events
and staff meetings, as well as
visits by members of the Shire
senior management to Shire HGT.
2 Corporate Responsibility Report 2005
Shire plc