CSR and Sustainability in the News

Bristol-Myers Squibb has awarded grants totaling $175,000 to the American Cancer Society Eastern Division and Princeton HealthCare System to support comprehensive navigation services for patients with cancer both independently and as part of a collaborative effort among several hospitals in central New Jersey. The grant to PHCS supports the expansion of a successful patient navigation program at the system’s acute-care hospital, University Medical Center of Princeton at Plainsboro (UMCPP) in Plainsboro. The program was first piloted at UMCPP’s Breast Health Center in East Windsor, under the guidance of a breast health navigator, and also among UMCPP’s patients with lung and esophageal cancer. The move toward a comprehensive oncology patient navigation program will expand navigation services to encompass all cancer patient categories at UMCPP’s Edward & Marie Matthews Center for Cancer Care. Read More

Merck & Co. has received an Energy Star 2013 Partner of the Year – Sustained Excellence Award from the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for its continued improvement of energy performance and leadership in energy management in both the pharmaceutical and industrial sectors. Merck has been an Energy Star partner since 1995 and recognized by the EPA for eight consecutive years. The award recognizes three Merck manufacturing sites that have achieved Energy Star rankings in the top 25% of pharmaceutical plant energy performance nationwide: Arecibo, Puerto Rico; Las Piedras, Puerto Rico; and Elkhorn, Nebraska. Also achieving certification this year were Merck's corporate headquarters in Whitehouse Station, New Jersey, for the fourth time; Merck’s research headquarters in Upper Gwynedd, Pennsylvania, for the second time; and company office buildings in Springfield, New Jersey, and West Point, Pennsylvania, for the first time. Read More

Novartis has launched an effort to eliminate rheumatic heart disease in Zambia in collaboration with the Lusaka University Teaching Hospital (UTH), the Ministry of Health in Zambia, the Pan-African Cardiology Society and Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH). To measure RHD prevalence and identify those in need of secondary prophylaxis, teams of health care professionals from Lusaka UTH, the MGH, and Novartis will use portable echocardiography machines to evaluate 3000 children, ages 9–10, in Lusaka-area public schools. Echocardiography screening is estimated to detect more than 10 times as many cases as clinical screening. Images from the echocardiography screens will be analyzed in Zambia and at the MGH using a cloud-based electronic registry developed by Dimagi, a Cambridge, Massachusetts-based company that designs open-source electronic healthcare systems for low-resource environments. Children identified as having RHD will be treated with monthly penicillin injections (termed “secondary prophylaxis”) to prevent recurrent streptococcal infections and additional valve damage. Primary prevention, the treatment of children with streptococcal infection to prevent RHD, is key to elimination of the disease. To this end, all children diagnosed with strep throat will be treated with injectable penicillin in the community based study sites. Prevalence of RHD and adherence to secondary prophylaxis will be determined via the mobile electronic registry. Read More

Roche Algeria has formed a partnership with a patient group and mobile operator to make breast cancer screenings available in remote desert areas. The project has been in the planning phase for more than two years, and consists of three partner organizations: patient advocacy group El Amel (Hope), mobile phone operator Mobilis, and Roche. The project, called the Mammobile, combines the expertise of each of these three entities to bring screening facilities closer to the women of Algeria, where 3500 of every 10,000 women diagnosed with breast cancer, die. El Amel is one of two national level breast cancer patient groups, while Mobilis has the bandwidth to reach customers all across Algeria with text alerts and other information to it subscribers. Read More

Sanofi and Schneider Electric have formed a collaboration agreement as part of Sanofi’s energy performance optimization program for its industrial sites in 40 countries around the world. The collaboration will operate employing four components: the establishment of an Energy Observatory to assist Sanofi with forecasting energy price changes in 16 countries; energy performance monitoring both globally and per site using the Struxureware Energy Operation software; on-site diagnostics to contribute towards the design of energy efficiency improvement plans; and energy consultancy to Sanofi’s engineering teams starting from the design phase of any new industrial site. To support Sanofi in this collaboration, Schneider Electric will base its strategy on experience acquired since 2005 from its Energy Action program for the continuous reduction of energy consumption on Schneider Electric sites around the world. The Sanofi–Schneider Electric collaboration agreement is implemented for three years. Read More