Research Ethics
Our responsibility to people begins in our laboratories. But it doesn’t end there. At all stages of the development and use of our medicines, Lilly strives to maintain the highest standards of ethical behavior.
Bioethics
Lilly is one of the first pharmaceutical companies to have established a standing bioethics committee and later a dedicated bioethics program. Lilly Bioethics is a part of the Global Ethics and Compliance organization. The Lilly Bioethics Program drives the integration of bioethics principles into Lilly’s standards, decisions and actions. The program is designed to address the increasingly complex and fast-paced ethical challenges of global pharmaceutical research, development and commercialization to protect and advocate for:
the rights and well-being of research participants and patients, and
the integrity of the scientific process and its applications for health care.
To these ends, the Lilly Bioethics Program
provides bioethics training and education;
consults with teams, functions and business areas on bioethics topics;
develops corporate positions on recurring or impactful bioethics topics;
provides input to policy decisions that have bioethical implications; and
collaborates externally to establish best practices in applying bioethics across the industry.
A key feature of the program is the Bioethics Advisory Committee, which includes internal researchers and business leaders as well as external experts. This committee works with teams and business areas to identify bioethical considerations and possible courses of action. Lilly’s Bioethics Framework for Human Biomedical Research guides employee discussions about the ethics of Lilly research. To ensure all employees are well-versed in Lilly’s values and bioethics concepts, Lilly offers numerous activities in which employees can be involved throughout the year, including lectures, seminars and case discussions, as well as formal training.
For more information on Lilly bioethics, please see Lilly’s ESG Report. For Lilly’s bioethics position on key topics, click on the following statements:
