It’s been said that the two most important days in a person’s life are the day they are born and the day they discover their why… their purpose. My ‘why’ is to drive a more just and equitable society for all. I’ve witnessed firsthand the destructive impact that systemic inequity can have on a person’s health outcomes and recognize that a person’s zip code is a better indicator of their health than their genetic code. Globally, millions are impacted by inadequate access to medicines and quality care. More must be done.
I joined Bristol Myers Squibb in 2021 to truly lean into my purpose. I was inspired by the company’s long-standing commitment to global inclusion, diversity and health equity. Patients and communities are at the center of everything we do, and our rich history of addressing healthcare disparities and the social determinants of health continue to be a priority and driving force for the company today.
Each day at BMS, our 30,000+ dedicated colleagues around the world continue to live into our mission of discovering, developing, and delivering innovative medicines that help patients prevail over serious diseases. We recognize that to drive sustainable change, we must address the systemic barriers that our patients and communities face in achieving optimal health outcomes.
In 2020, Bristol Myers Squibb announced five-year Inclusion, Diversity & Health Equity goals that address disparities in healthcare, increase diversity in clinical trials, expand the supply chain to include more diverse suppliers, enhance our employees’ ability to give back to the community and increase the diversity of our own workforce to reflect the patients and communities we serve globally. These goals build on our strong Global Inclusion & Diversity (GI&D) base and will be leveraged to accelerate our GI&D progress.
We’ve made great progress against our goals through our purposeful action:
- Granting over $67 million across 238 grants to support patient access, education and specialty care across our therapeutic areas
- Locating 59% of U.S. Clinical trials in highly diverse communities
- Spending $960M with diverse suppliers as of August of 2022, putting us on track to hit our goal of $1B in diverse spending by 2025
- Increasing representation globally with women representing 45.5% of executives in 2021, African American/Blacks executives representing 4.5% of our U.S. executive population in 2021 and Latino/Hispanic executives representing 7.2% of our U.S. executive population in 2021.
Additionally, the Bristol Myers Squibb Foundation Employee Giving Program donated more than $ 800K to social justice organizations identified by our People Business & Resource Groups (PBRGs).
We know that there is more work to be done. We will continue to prioritize our strategic inclusion, diversity, and health equity goals and areas of focus to ensure our enterprise activations and initiatives drive collective progress and sustainable impact globally.
We will integrate inclusive practices into our processes, policies and systems to transform how we work every day.
We must continue to be intentional, transparent, and vigilant. We must continue to hold ourselves accountable for reimagining and disrupting historical systems of inequities to drive sustainable, equitable access, outcomes and impact for all.
