Our New Code of Conduct - Putting UCB’s Ethics into Action to Help Employees Navigate Complexity and Support Decision Making

Working at UCB for nearly 25 years, I’ve had the opportunity to see exactly what makes this company special and sets it apart from its peers: a culture rooted in a strong, shared sense of purpose to deliver value to people living with severe diseases.

I see this commitment in the work we do every day, in the way our colleagues interact with each other and their communities and in the relationships that we continue to build with those who look to us to help solve health challenges. I have also seen our industry evolving to meet the challenges of our time – a new health ecosystem defined by more connectivity and a focus on individual patient needs, the growing expectations of good corporate citizenship and sustainability and the focus on ethics – not simply compliance - as the metric by which we are measured.

All of this was top of mind as we took on the task of transforming our Code of Conduct. We knew that we needed something more than a compliance guide and a list of “dos and don’ts” because we live in a complex world where the best decision often is more nuanced than that. Additionally, we at UCB consider ourselves as democratic and employee-led – any code of ethics needed to be one that reflected this spirit and not be dictated top-down.

We needed something that represented the thriving, diverse and evolving UCB, something that empowered all of us to make smart decisions and hold our peers accountable. 

And so, we asked our UCBers and looked at ethics and conduct through the same lens we use for all our work at UCB: how can we maximize the value we create for patients and other stakeholders who have put their trust in UCB?

Ethics, Sustainability and Patient Value
From the small choices that we make as individuals to the large decisions that chart the future course of our global company, every choice we make impacts our ability to create real value for patients, for health care providers, for the communities we live and work in and for those who have chosen to put their trust in UCB.

Some of these choices are clear-cut in the highly regulated pharmaceutical space: compliance with regulations and internal policies, respect for the dignity and privacy of others, financial integrity. But we are faced with countless opportunities where decisions are not black and white. For instance in how we utilize new and emerging science and technology or where and how we market treatments. In these areas, there is no clear-cut right answer, and that is where our Code of Conduct comes into play.

A Code That Reflects Our World and Our UCB
Our new Code of Conduct is designed to be as universal as possible, able to exist within the contexts that our employees operate and able to support colleagues in every country where we operate.

Our hope and belief is that by empowering each of us with this tool – and by ensuring we are all accountable to each other – we can make decisions that consistently enhance our ability to move our patient value mission forward.

Our ambition is to be the most sustainable company we can possibly be, which means having a positive impact on society, reducing our environmental footprint, and continuing to deliver tangible benefits to patients. We cannot achieve this goal without a solid commitment to ethical decision-making – and a framework to ensure we hold true to it.