Healthcare Working Group Overview
Introduction
Established in 1999, BSR’s Healthcare Working Group (HCWG) serves as a forum for companies to discuss societal issues faced by the healthcare sector, with a view to maximizing the scalability, sustainability, and impact of their responses.
HCWG participants include senior company representatives from functions including CSR, communications, investor relations, market access, and public and governmental affairs.
This group provides a forum for precompetitive collaboration on key sustainable business issues. It also offers companies the opportunity to network with their peers and share their experiences and best practices in an environment that promotes learning and respects confidentiality.
Mission
In a radically transformed operating environment, the mission of the HCWG is to empower its member companies to be stronger and more sustainable, and to take collective action towards a more resilient industry.
Our Accomplishments
- We launched the Guiding Principles on Access to Healthcare (GPAH), an industry-wide framework for reducing the global burden of disease and improving global health outcomes
- The GPAH have been signed by the CEOs of 13 major healthcare companies with global leadership in pharmaceuticals, vaccines, diagnostics, and other medical technology
- We have since unpacked a number of key elements of access to healthcare and published reports on topics such as metrics and measurement / innovative financing mechanisms
- The HCWG is BSR’s longest-standing collaborative initiative, with 20 years of experience and expertise in collective solutions for a sustainable and resilient healthcare sector
Guiding Principles on Access to Healthcare
In collaboration and consultation with key stakeholders, HCWG members have developed industry-wide principles to frame and describe the industry’s approach to reducing the global burden of disease and improving global health outcomes. The principles have been signed by the CEOs of 13 major healthcare companies.
The Guiding Principles on Access to Healthcare (GPAH) are a call to action to expand access to quality healthcare. They build on the experience and lessons learned by the industry from working with many stakeholders to help improve access to medicines and vaccines for areas as diverse as HIV/AIDS, neglected tropical diseases, and childhood immunization.
The GPAH recognize the importance of each of the following five core areas:
- Collaboration
- Research and development
- Expanding availability of healthcare services
- Developing health systems resources
- Respecting human rights
The GPAH frame the signatories’ efforts—both as independent companies, and as a collective body of signatories—to reduce the global burden of disease by helping to ensure that medicines, vaccines, diagnostics, and other medical technology and assistance are effectively developed and deployed.
For more information, download the overview.
Why Join?
- Network and collaborate with peers working across the global healthcare sector
- Amplify your company’s voice in stakeholder discussions
- Keep abreast of emerging issues facing the pharmaceutical and healthcare industries
- Learn from industry, corporate responsibility, and other experts on topics such as access to healthcare, climate resilience, artificial intelligence, and trust and transparency
Resources
Healthcare Working Group Sustainable Development Goals Alignment
