Social Performance: Philanthropic Contributions

Philanthropic Support

Bristol-Myers Squibb and the Bristol-Myers Squibb Foundation continue to support programs to provide immediate relief to the victims of disasters. Our efforts are channeled to where they are needed most either at the local level or through partnerships with international relief organizations. Though we are there when disasters strike, our core approach to corporate philanthropy is to focus on sustainable development solutions.

The Bristol-Myers Squibb Foundation has existed for nearly a half century. Its aim is to align the focus areas of the Foundation with the most pressing needs of the society in which our company operates. The Foundation's activities support a broad range of programs that address important health matters and educational issues around the world.

Among the Foundation's major initiatives is SECURE THE FUTURE, a $115 million, five-year commitment to address the serious problem of HIV/AIDS in southern and western Africa. Support is provided through community outreach programs and research funding.

Recently, the Foundation focused its efforts on chronic Hepatitis in Asia – and specifically China. The Foundation has found that a lack of awareness about the virus leads to continued transmission in the region. Efforts funded by the Foundation to slow the spread of the virus include integrating training, education, and treatment into the primary care system; programs to prevent mother-to-child transmissions of the virus; and efforts to encourage community leaders to speak openly about the virus.

We also support programs that improve the health of women and the health care infrastructure of developing and transitional countries, promote science education, provide disaster relief through products and funding and benefit the communities where our employees live and work. In addition, Bristol-Myers Squibb is a pioneer in the area of patient assistance programs and provides the company's medicines free of charge to qualified people who are unable to pay for them.

Additional information on the company's philanthropic initiatives can be found on the Bristol-Myers Squibb Foundation website. Also see more information on access to medicines and view a video on SECURE THE FUTURE, Continuing the Promise (you will need the Windows Media player to view this movie).

Disaster Relief

Natural disasters also pose serious health care challenges, as demonstrated all too well from recent experiences. The pharmaceutical industry is a responsive and generous donor of medicines and other products – as well as money – to victims of natural disasters around the world. In 2005 alone, the industry donated more than $130 million in medicines, product and cash to the victims of Hurricane Katrina in the Gulf Coast, and more than $170 million to the South Asian relief effort following the December 2004 tsunami.

The industry has an opportunity to be better prepared for future natural disasters by developing industry-wide emergency plans that could respond to public health needs in a more coordinated and comprehensive manner.

United Way Campaign

The 2005-2006 Bristol-Myers Squibb United Way Campaign collected close to $2.5 million in contributions from employees in the United States and Puerto Rico. With a dollar-for-dollar match by the Bristol-Myers Squibb Foundation, almost $5 million will be contributed to support community organizations through United Way.

Additionally, in 2007 Mead Johnson Nutritionals and the Bristol-Myers Squibb Foundation contributed over $565,000 to 32 non-profit organizations throughout Southern Indiana. More than $335,000 of this will go to area United Way organizations.

Infrastructure Support

Bristol-Myers Squibb has sponsored several initiatives to develop local infrastructures, with particular focus on health care for children.

In June 2005, the company announced a program, in partnership with the Baylor College of Medicine, to help save the lives of potentially thousands of children in Africa who are infected with HIV/AIDS.

The program hopes to treat 80,000 children over the next five years. Bristol-Myers Squibb has committed $30 million and Baylor has pledged an additional $10 million. Our effort has three parts:

First, we will create the world’s first Pediatric AIDS Corps, sending up to 250 doctors from the U.S. to Africa to treat children and train other health professionals.
In addition, we will commit to fund four additional children’s clinical centers of excellence, one in Burkina Faso -- the first such center in West Africa -- and one in Uganda, as well as two more in other developing countries at sites yet to be determined. These new children’s centers will complement three others that the company already is funding. One, in Botswana, is currently treating more than 1,200 infants and children each day, and has become one of the largest and most successful pediatric AIDS treatment centers in the world. Two others -- in the southern African countries of Lesotho and Swaziland -- are currently under construction and expected to open on or around World AIDS Day in December.
Environmental considerations were incorporated into the planning of the Children's Centers of Excellence under construction in Lesotho and Swaziland. The centers include features to conserve energy, water and other resources – such as preserving nearby trees for shading and using locally manufactured materials in the buildings. In addition to Bristol-Myers Squibb and Baylor, the children's centers of excellence are being constructed with support from the SECURE THE FUTURE and national governments.
Finally, we will reduce the price of pediatric formulations of our HIV medicines in the least developed countries in order to expand access to treatment.

Other examples of infrastructure support include a new funding initiative of $5 million over five years, which will be directed toward three new clinical centers of excellence for New Jersey's children at the Bristol-Myers Squibb Children's Hospital at Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital in New Brunswick, New Jersey: the Center for Pediatric Clinical Metabolism, the Center for Pediatric Clinical Immunology and Infectious Diseases, and the Center for Children with Rheumatic Diseases.

Bristol-Myers Squibb also announced in 2004 a $150,000 award toward the construction of clinical laboratory facilities that will help enhance the learning environment at the New Brunswick/Piscataway, New Jersey, campus of the College of Nursing of Rutgers.

Mead Johnson donated $250,000 to help fund the Family Birth Center at the new Community Hospital in Zeeland, Michigan. Patient rooms in the new center will be equipped to enable new mothers to go through labor, delivery, recovery, and the postpartum stay all in one room – eliminating frequent room-to-room transfers. The new Family Birth Center is expected to be a showplace of the new hospital and will serve as a model for other community hospitals.

Employee Volunteerism

Although we currently do not track volunteer hours globally, Bristol-Myers Squibb employees from across the world volunteer their time to support local communities. For example, at the facility in Aichi, Japan, approximately half the employees participated in cleaning up the area around the facility, including a park and roads, on Environment Day (June 5).

Additional information on the company's philanthropic initiatives can be found on the Bristol-Myers Squibb Foundation website.

Last updated November 13, 2007 . Italicized product names are registered trademarks of Bristol-Myers Squibb Company or one of its divisions or subsidiaries. Copyright © 1998-2006 Bristol-Myers Squibb Company. Your use of the information on this site is subject to the terms of our Legal Notices.