From idea to donation – and everything in between

Each year, International Health Partners (IHP) runs a Sharing Best Practice Workshop to give pharmaceutical professionals, health practitioners and others the chance to learn and collaborate on best practices in medicine and medical product donation. 2019’s event welcomed Mark Repath, customer service manager at Janssen, to present a session about how to get your company to donate: ‘From idea to donation (and everything in between)’.

Janssen is a longstanding IHP donor, and in 2016 seconded Repath to help the charity develop its best practice guidelines for corporate donations. IHP was founded in 2004 in response to the Boxing Day tsunami disaster, and has become Europe’s leading coordinator of donated medicines. Over the last 15 years, run by a small but dedicated team in London, it’s sent more than 43 million donated treatments to its NGO partners. Through these, IHP responds to complex disasters such as that in South Sudan, supports long-term health programmes, and with its Essential Health Packs equips healthcare professionals to run clinics in vulnerable communities.

The benefits of donations for corporate partners are clear, said Repath: “You save and improve lives, improve reputation, reduce wastage and engage employees.” He set out guidance about making a business case for product donation within a company, and drew comparisons between “donating excess product versus destroying it” and “planned donation”. In summary: “You might end up storing a product for a year before you destroy it. Someone then says ‘it’s got less than xx months until expiry, let’s destroy it’. If you donate it, you might save some money.”

Establishing a product donation process takes considerable time, coordination and dedication. It’s akin to conducting an orchestra, says Repath. It’s therefore vital to engage people from different departments – legal, pharmacovigilance (PV), regulatory, inventory management, supply and production planning, to name a few – and harness philanthropic intent. “It’s not just your time. It’s everyone else’s, all around the company. You’re conducting people with strong opinions on product donation, and you need to get them to work together. You’ve got to create one standard process – then keep it running.”

Working with International Health Partners makes the process easier. “IHP has agreements with its partners about PV and about reporting. The reassurance we get from IHP’s MHRA license really helps to save time.”

To find out about partnering with IHP to donate products, email l.amartey@ihpuk.org or call 0203 735 5520.