4th May 2017, London – Transparency International’s Pharmaceuticals & Healthcare Programme is today launching a set of new principles focused on strengthening ethical standards across the pharmaceutical sector in Latin America, promoting integrity and ethical business practices.

“Business Principles for Promoting Integrity in the Pharmaceutical Sector in Latin America” (Pharma Integrity Principles), calls on pharma companies to implement these Principles to help reduce the risk of corruption, which holds back effective healthcare, for example by denying millions of people to fair access to necessary, and often life-saving medicines.

The Pharma Integrity Principles for Latin America aim to promote integrity in the pharmaceutical sector and guide companies in:

• Eliminating bribery and related conflicts of interest
• Demonstrating that the pharma industry is able to do business with integrity
• Making a positive contribution to improving business standards of integrity, transparency and accountability
• Development, or strengthening of a practical and effective internal Anti-Corruption or Integrity Program.

These principles serve to complement the existing efforts of the industry at a local and regional level to promote integrity and ethical business practices in the pharmaceutical sector, as further detailed in the Pharma Integrity Principles document.

Sophie Peresson, Director of TI’s Pharmaceuticals & Healthcare Programme said:

“The adoption of these Principles by companies will further demonstrate the commitment of the pharmaceutical industry in fighting corruption in the Latin American pharmaceutical and health care industries.  Recently, health challenges such as the Zika virus and other health emergencies have shown how countries can be brought to a standstill when the industry is unable to respond due to poor governance and gaps in the supply chain caused by corruption, impacting public health.”

“These Principles are the result of a multi-stakeholder approach that has brought a broad range of representatives from the pharmaceutical industry and the Latin American health sector. Their involvement in this process has already demonstrated an important commitment to applying high ethical standards in the Latin American health industry. We now hope that companies throughout the industry will adopt and implement these Principles.”

“Corruption in healthcare and pharmaceuticals is a matter of life and death, and therefore its ramifications can be huge for entire communities.  These new Principles are another step in the helping reduce corruption in the Latin American healthcare industries and services”.

Luis Villalba, FIFARMA Director General said:

“Compliance has been a top priority of the research & development pharmaceutical industry associations and companies in Latin America. The need for multi-stakeholder efforts to raise the bar in terms of ethical standards in the benefit of patients in the region is clear. These Principles are an additional tool to provide companies with practical guidance and a reference point to develop or benchmark their own policies and procedures to promote integrity, thus strengthening standards and good governance across the region, which is one of FIFARMA’s main goals”

By adopting and implementing up the “Business Principles for Promoting Integrity in the Pharmaceutical Sector”, pharmaceutical companies doing business in Latin America will further demonstrate their commitment to preventing corrupt activities by tackling bribery and conflicts of interests while improving business standards of integrity, transparency and accountability in the region. Principles provide companies with practical guidance and act as a reference point for developing or maintaining their own policies and procedures for promoting integrity in their work.

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Transparency International’s Pharmaceuticals & Healthcare Programme is a global initiative based in Transparency International UK. Applying Transparency International’s strengths and expertise, the Programme’s overall goal is to improve global health and healthcare outcomes for the benefit of all people of all ages.  It aims to achieve this by reducing corruption and promoting transparency, integrity and accountability within the pharmaceutical and healthcare sectors.

FIFARMA is the Latin American Federation of Pharmaceutical Industry, a regional organization that represents 13 Research and Development Pharmaceutical Companies and 9 local Trade Associations across the Latin American region. FIFARMA members are involved in the research and development of innovative healthcare products, and provide state of the art healthcare solutions through a variety of products and services aimed at improving and saving patients’ lives across the globe, placing patient safety as one of our main objectives.

Contact:

Transparency International
Philip Jones
+44 (0)79 6456 0340
Philip.jones@transparency.org.uk

FIFARMA
María Alejandra De Guzmán
+ 57 304 546 0983
madeguzman@fifarma.org