Anti-Slavery & Human Trafficking Statement 2023

More than 87,000 IQVIA employees across more than 100 countries work every day to support our customers in making critical decisions and improving performance, to deliver better healthcare to patients globally. Our ability to develop unique solutions to our customers' most pressing healthcare challenges is what sets us apart. We do this by bringing our extensive portfolio of expertise and capabilities together through IQVIA Connected Intelligence™ — an integrated offering designed to meet complex customer needs and provide new levels of value. Connected Intelligence combines the strengths of our three operating segments — Research and Development Solutions, Technology and Analytics Solutions, and Contract Sales and Medical Solutions — to create tailored, outcomes-focused insights and solutions.

Ethics and integrity are at the core of everything we do. Wherever we operate and whatever the context, we strive to do what is right. We share this expectation with everyone who works for or with IQVIA and require a total commitment to ethical behavior. As such, we work to ensure the prevention of acts of modern slavery and human trafficking, by requiring those same high standards from our suppliers.

We actively combat approaches that have the potential to foster modern slavery and human trafficking by taking a zero-tolerance approach to unethical practices. This is clear from our organizational culture, our policies and procedures and our Code of Conduct. We are committed to acting professionally, fairly, and most importantly, with integrity – not only across our supply chain, but in all our business dealings.

Key Stakeholders

Our approximately 87,000 employees help us drive our business success and achieve our ambition to advance human health. Our workforce is comprised of a wide variety of professionals, including clinicians, data scientists, epidemiologists, software developers, clinical experts, commercial specialists and data management professionals. Every employee plays a key role in ensuring our business operates in an ethical and transparent manner - allowing our customers, our shareholders and the overall industry in which we operate to be confident of our commitment to operating with integrity.

Whilst we recognize that an organization’s workforce has the potential to be a high-risk area with regard to modern slavery and other human rights matters, we believe this risk is reduced for IQVIA. This is because the majority of our workforce is educated or skilled and works in controlled environments with a well-structured management system and well-established policies and processes.

Within the IQVIA global organisation, there are global and local functions responsible for compliance and risk management including.

  • Ethics and Compliance
  • Legal
  • Internal Audit
  • Quality Assurance
  • Human Resources
  • Chief Medical and Scientific Office
  • Procurement

These functions are responsible for safeguarding our commercial and ethical interests through robust policy development and reviews, staff engagement, people management, improving governance, and managing third-party contractors/suppliers.

Policies and Procedures

As part of IQVIA commitment to combating modern slavery, the following policies and processes govern our organisation:

Our Code of Conduct – “Doing the Right Thing”

Our Code of Conduct (the “Code”) is a set of critical principles that govern how we work. The Code communicates our human rights, labor, environmental and anti-corruption requirements to all IQVIA employees. The Code not only governs our actions but also provides resources for seeking help or reporting concerns. It applies globally to all directors, officers, employees and contractors.

Supplier Code of Conduct

Our Supplier Code of Conduct (the Supplier Code) sets expectations of our suppliers in a number of key areas including labor and human rights, ethics and compliance, and health and safety. Based on internationally recognized standards, the Supplier Code requires our suppliers to commit to upholding the human rights of workers, treating them with dignity and respect. The Supplier Code also requires our suppliers to communicate its principles with their own supply chain and periodically evaluate their compliance, helping us to extend our expectations beyond the first tier of our supply chain.

Anti-Bribery/Anti-Corruption Policy

This policy sets forth IQVIA’s commitment to ethical practices and compliance with anti-bribery and anti-corruption laws and related regulations. It applies globally to all directors, officers, employees, and contractors.

Training

IQVIA provides a full range of compulsory training modules on a variety of ethics and compliance topics to all employees and contractors. Employees and contractors are required to annually review and confirm compliance with IQVIA’s Code of Conduct, which details our human rights, labor, environmental and anti-corruption requirements.

Reporting, investigations and corrective actions

We expect our workforce to seek guidance on ethics and compliance matters and to report potential violations of our Code, policies or the law and we support them in doing so. To aid early issue detection and remediation, we encourage employees to seek guidance on ethics and compliance matters and to address concerns directly with others if they feel comfortable doing so. They can also use one of the reporting channels communicated in our Code, including contacting their manager or another manager, a member of the local leadership team, their Human Resources representative, the Legal department, the Ethics and Compliance Office or Internal Audit. In addition, our employees or anyone else within or outside IQVIA can report a concern via telephone or internet, 24/7, using IQVIA’s global Ethics Line. Internet access and information about country-specific telephone numbers are available at iqviaethics.com. The Ethics Line is operated by an independent third party. Reports can be made anonymously to the extent permitted by applicable local law.

We investigate all reported concerns and take appropriate action when violations are identified and substantiated. We prohibit retaliation against anyone raising concerns in good faith.

Due Diligence

Our procedures are designed to establish, assess and monitor areas of potential risk where slavery and human trafficking could occur throughout the business, including in our supply chains. These procedures ensure appropriate measures are put in place to minimize these risks and provide protection for those raising concerns.

All of our commercial contracts are subject to assurances from third party organizations that require them to operate in an ethical and legal manner. We also require the values of our contractors to be aligned with our own.

Our Clinical teams undertake site selection visits to ensure external health organizations are operating safely, and they undertake robust audits to ascertain suitability of both people and facilities.

Risk and Compliance

IQVIA has put in place a series of measures which provide us with insight into the practices of suppliers and third parties that we engage. Our commitment is to continue to review and assess all commercial relationships within our supply chain and to educate the key stakeholders regarding human trafficking and modern slavery in the process.

IQVIA is proud to work with some of the most recognized companies in the healthcare industry that share our commitment to the eradication of human trafficking and modern slavery. As such, we believe our operations are low risk.

For further information about our ethical standards, please see our Sustainability and Citizenship reports which are published annually, and available on our website at https://www.iqvia.com/about-us/esg

Effectiveness

All IQVIA employees must demonstrate commitment to IQVIA’s culture of compliance, which includes adhering to the company’s Code of Conduct and policies, and completing all mandatory training on time.

We continue to promote our organizational values throughout all aspects of our business, and we insist that our suppliers and partners continue to do the same. If we find evidence of a failure to comply with our policies, we will seek to either address or terminate our relationship with the relevant supplier.

This statement is made on behalf of IQVIA Ltd. and IQVIA IES UK Limited pursuant to section 54(1) of the Modern Slavery Act (2015) and constitutes our slavery and human trafficking statement for the financial year ending 31st December 2023.  It was approved by the boards of each company on 26 November 2024.

 

 

Tim Sheppard
General Manager, UKI & North Europe
IQVIA Ltd.
IQVIA IES UK Limited

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