Novartis publishes Corporate Responsibility Performance Report for 2013

Novartis has announced the publication of its Corporate Responsibility Performance Report for 2013, highlighting its increased transparency on key areas including human resources, supply chain and ethics.

According to the report, the company was able to provide medicine to more than 100 million patients last year, as well as offering health education, infrastructure development and other programmes to an additional 8.1 million people worldwide.

It expanded access to affordable vaccines and therapies, spearheaded education schemes in nations such as India, Kenya and Vietnam, improved its supply chain transparency and made huge savings in its energy usage.

Additionally, the firm noted that its new report reflects the best-in-class reporting standard, the Global Reporting Initiative's G4 guidelines, one year ahead of the required implementation deadline.

Joseph Jimenez, chief executive officer of Novartis, said: "Our corporate responsibility work is embedded in our business strategy, which is to use science-based innovation to improve patient health around the world."

This comes after the organisation recently unveiled new global guidelines for investigator-initiated trials, as part of its commitment to supporting ethical clinical research standards.