Can one company on its own establish high standards of ethical conduct, or is an industry approach required?
We set our own high standards of ethical conduct which we hope will establish a benchmark by which all companies are judged. We also work with other companies through trade associations to develop high ethical standards. We believe that it is in the best interest of patients if the pharmaceutical industry adopts common high standards of ethical conduct. This will also help to improve trust in the industry among all our stakeholders. A lot of GSK employees were dismissed for unethical conduct. Are your policies working? In 2008, 266 employees were dismissed or agreed to leave the company voluntarily as a result of policy violations. Unethical conduct occurs in all companies. We believe these figures demonstrate the effectiveness of our monitoring and compliance programmes. Furthering our ethical culture, recruiting the right people, providing the right training and tools, improving our checks and encouraging people to speak up enable us to identify and address unethical conduct in a con
