Investor members of the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility are asking 14 pharmaceutical companies to collaborate on developing critical — and accessible — health-care technologies, including ways to diagnose, treat and vaccinate against COVID-19.
"The current pandemic offers … an opportunity to demonstrate congruence between company mission, strategy and operations to address the most devastating public health crisis in a century," ICCR members said in a letter sent April 1 to the CEOs of AbbVie, Amgen, Biogen, Bristol Myers Squibb, Gilead, GlaxoSmithKline, Eli Lilly, Johnson & Johnson, Merck, Pfizer, Novartis, Roche, Sanofi and Vertex Pharmaceuticals. "We trust that you will take the right steps in collaboration with other stakeholders to ensure equitable access across populations and geographies, and to quickly and safely scale up diagnostic measures, treatments and when available, a vaccine."
Lauren Compere, managing director and director of shareholder engagement at ICCR member Boston Common Asset Management, said in a statement: "We have long engaged these companies, both individually and collectively via roundtables, around strategies to increase the access and affordability of lifesaving medicines. We know they have the capacity to do this; we also know they will accomplish more and faster if they work together."