Stories and Viewpoints

Access & Impact

May 16, 2023

By: Jennifer Yates

Viatris has released our 2022 Sustainability Report, featuring stories of our impact around the world that demonstrate our belief that access is incredibly personal and fundamental to our mission. Everyone at Viatris contributes to the work we do to address key environmental, social and governance matters, recognizing that our actions affect the stakeholders and communities we serve. Together, our colleagues helped provide approximately 1 billion patients worldwide with medicines last year.

“We can’t underscore enough, how everyone at Viatris is part of the journey to build more sustainable access to medicine and drives our mission to empower people worldwide to live healthier at every stage of life,” said Lara Ramsburg, Viatris’ Head of Corporate Affairs.

The 2022 Sustainability Report provides an update and progress on Viatris’ initial company-wide sustainability goals in the areas of access and health; diversity, equity and inclusion; and the environment, which were first announced in 2022. The report also details how we are advancing responsible and sustainable practices and operations, leveraging our collective expertise across areas of impact, working to ensure a reliable supply of medicine and collaborating with partners to make a difference.

Viatris in 2022

Examples include the following:

In Belgium, colleagues helped secure public reimbursement for a treatment for adults with multidrug-resistant tuberculosis (TB). We are uniquely engaged in partnerships to address TB, including through our efforts to bring new treatments addressing drug-resistant TB more equitably to patients around the world. This product is only the third new anti-TB drug approved in the past half-century.

In the U.S., we received approval last year and launched the first generic version of a treatment for dry eye disease, increasing access to a more affordable treatment option for patients. Approximately 16 million Americans suffer from dry eye diseases, according to the National Eye Institute.

As one of the largest suppliers of antiretrovirals in the world, we are working to reduce packaging materials and waste for these products in collaboration with our customers. Examples of that work include replacing individual leaflets on medicine bottles with pads of leaflets placed directly in the shipping package. For institutional customers like hospitals or pharmacists, the leaflets can be torn off and given to patients as needed.

In Japan, home to the world’s oldest population according to the World Economic Forum, Viatris gathered in 2022 with experts in cardiology, diabetes, respiratory, gastroenterology and other therapeutic areas to discuss how to reduce the country’s growing burden of noncommunicable diseases (NCDs), for which the elderly are at higher risk. It was the first time a pharmaceutical company in Japan convened with such a group on the topic, with a goal to educate health care providers about their important role in caring for patients whose treatments often span multiple NCDs.

The report also details our work in communities around the world, including how we supported colleagues and regions affected by the ongoing crisis in Ukraine; supported access to healthcare, food security and water stewardship in communities around the world through a $1 million donation to four global organizations; donated more than 450 million doses of medicine for humanitarian needs through our partners around the world; and how we continuously work to address key sustainability matters.

“Everything we do is truly foundational for our relevance and our future success as an employer and as a partner, to our operations and ultimately our ability to advance on our mission,” said Lina Andersson, Viatris’ Head of Corporate Social Responsibility. “And this work truly involves everyone at Viatris in different ways. It is multifunctional, it happens across geographies, and it goes on all year round.”