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Our Responsibility

At BioMarin, we seek to make a big difference in genetic disorders—for our patients, employees, community and environment. These four pillars are the foundation on which we conduct our day-to-day operations and business practices. With our patients at the heart of everything we do, we strive to pioneer a more sustainable, inclusive and compassionate tomorrow.

More details on our current corporate responsibility efforts appear below, and information on our plans to further advance environmental, social and governance (ESG) issues is included here.

To Our Patients: Advancing Comprehensive Care

Our Patients holding a print out heart

Everything we do is focused on our patients, and we always have their best interests in mind. Each one drives our efforts to find ways to provide them and their families with access to treatments, disease education and comprehensive patient support services. We recognize the importance of integrating the patient voice starting at research and development and continuing even after a medicine is approved to best serve the unique needs of each community.

Our Commitment:

  • Patient support programs drive product education and disease awareness, such as grocery store tours exploring low-phe food options for those with PKU
  • Close collaboration with disease-state and patient advocates
  • RARE Scholars, an annual scholarship for students living with rare disease, to empower patients with continued education
  • Expanded access to therapies through our Compassionate Use Policy
  • Grants and funding for a variety of events, activities and projects that educate patients and raise awareness about rare disease
  • Support for Investigator Initiated Studies to advance scientific innovation for rare diseases and genetic disorders

Access to Our Therapies in Low- and Middle-Income Regions

At BioMarin, it’s not enough to make transformative medicines: we work to ensure that people from low- and middle-income regions have access to our therapies. Treatment for rare genetic conditions comes with unique challenges, and the path to access varies in each region. For these reasons, we partner with all those involved in breaking down regional obstacles and facilitating paths to care, including doctors, health officials, researchers, community advocates, suppliers and patients themselves. Our approach includes:

  • Reaching national pricing agreements in a number of low- and middle-income countries
  • Adjusting established agreements following major regional events such as armed conflict and natural disasters
  • Tailoring drug delivery processes to meet unique regional needs: for example, identifying ways to maintain frozen medicines in route to areas with infrastructure challenges
  • Partnering in initiatives to improve diagnostic capacity and identify those in need of treatment
  • Designing patient support programs that address specific barriers to care in individual regions

To Our Employees: Fostering Innovation and Inclusion

Employees working together

More than two decades ago, BioMarin began by embracing difference – acknowledging and addressing the unmet medical needs of people with genetic diseases. Today, this ethos extends across our company, where we believe in fostering a diverse and inclusive community of employees. We seek diverse perspectives and value contributions from those with a broad spectrum of backgrounds, education, personalities, skill sets, experiences, and knowledge. At BioMarin, we are passionate about transforming lives through genetic discovery, and this takes the widest possible range of ideas. To find solutions for the patients we serve, our workforce must represent diversity in all its forms.

Our Commitment:

  • Understand, support, and celebrate our differences in race, ethnicity, gender, age, religion, disability, and sexual orientation
  • Adhere to a Global Code of Conduct and Business Ethics to conduct all aspects of our business in accordance with the highest standards of ethical behavior
  • Provide an open-door policy and EthicsPoint hotline that allows employees to ask questions or submit potential policy violations
  • Support employee resource groups and events that reflect the needs of our employees, such as PRIDE and BioMarin Women’s Leadership Development (BWLD)
  • Participate in the Western Regional Minority Supplier Development Council (WRMSDC), providing access to certified minority suppliers, supplier diversity program development, and more

To Our Community: Investing in the Next Pioneers

We are proud members of our community and believe that giving back starts at home. Our passion is the science, so we’ve funneled our philanthropic giving into programs that encourage science education and the development of the next generation of pioneers.

Our Commitment:

  • An ongoing commitment to supporting BioTech Partners, an independent, non-profit, Bay Area-based organization focused on helping students underrepresented in the field of biotechnology to attain personal, academic, and professional development experiences through in-classroom instruction and paid internships within the biotech and health industries
  • Sponsorship of the Mill Valley Film Festival to elevate the power of storytelling and voices of our community
  • Additional grants and donations that provide funding for a variety of events, activities, and projects that support patients, the scientific or medical community, and/or public health in areas of legitimate interest to BioMarin
  • BioMarin is dedicated to providing innovative treatments to patients with serious, rare genetic diseases, and BioMarin’s Suppliers (individuals and/or organizations that provide services, raw material, active ingredients, components, finished goods, or other products to BioMarin) play an important role in assisting BioMarin with providing patients with these treatments. In every area of its business, BioMarin endeavors to operate with the highest ethical and environmentally sustainable principles. BioMarin expects its Suppliers to share the same principles and uses this Supplier Code of Conduct to, among other things, highlight to Suppliers BioMarin’s expectations that Suppliers enforce safe working conditions, treat their workers with respect and dignity, and utilize sound and environmentally sustainable business practices. This Code outlines BioMarin’s expectations of its Suppliers to abide by the stated standards for ethics, labor and human rights, environment, health and safety, quality, related management systems, and the other matters.

To the Environment: Building a Sustainable, Healthy Future

Employees helping the environment

Creating a cleaner, healthier, and more sustainable world is consistent with BioMarin’s values. Motivated by our desire to help improve lives, driven by our pioneering spirit, and guided by our passion for science, we actively engage in reducing our impact on the environment. As a global corporate citizen, BioMarin commits to operating in a manner that protects the environment and provides a safe and healthful workplace for personnel and the communities in which we operate. For more information on our Environmental Health, Safety and Sustainability (EHS&S) programs, please click here, and to read our Global EHS&S Policy, please click here.

As a healthcare company with patients at the heart of all we do, BioMarin focuses on breakthrough science that will improve the health of our patients. We are data driven and apply that same scientific rigor to our efforts to protect our planet. BioMarin embraces its commitment to environmental sustainability and has a long history of reducing its environmental footprint by investing in innovative technologies and implementing them into our business operations, managing greenhouse gas emissions and increasing the efficiency of existing processes through energy reviews that help identify opportunities to improve energy efficiency, making targeted capital improvements to reduce emissions, purchasing renewable energy, and adopting water conservation, recycling, and employee commuting programs.

Our Commitment:

  • We actively design and renovate facilities and office suites that are energy efficient and embrace the highest of standards used by green building rating systems. All building construction and renovation projects meet either LEED Gold certification requirements from the U.S. Green Building Council or the more stringent CALGreen building code requirements from the State of California in place at the time of project execution.
  • Revitalizing a downtown San Rafael brownfield by completing a $17M remediation of a former PG&E Manufactured Gas Plant site to remove toxic materials. This work not only enables the expansion of our San Rafael campus, but also supports our donation of a portion of the remediated property to nonprofit organizations that will develop an active aging center and affordable senior housing for the community.
  • Purchase of 100% of our electricity from Marin Clean Energy with over 60% of BioMarin’s electricity for our Novato and San Rafael campuses generated from renewable sources like wind and solar.
  • Achieved ISO 50001 certification for our Shanbally, Ireland, energy management system (EnMS) in 2017 and continue to maintain the accreditation to date. BioMarin’s EnMS provides a formal framework for reducing energy use that includes development of targets, regular audits, and review activities to ensure the EnMS is working. Energy use is one of the biggest contributors to greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, and by implementing this EnMS, BioMarin’s Shanbally facility has optimized building systems and infrastructure to lower thermal and electrical energy usage and reduce its GHG emissions.
  • Initiated a pilot energy reduction project at our Shanbally, Ireland, facility that far exceeded its 2% reduction goal for 2017 by delivering over 1,800,000kWh energy savings that year.
  • Efforts to exclude conflict minerals, such as gold, tungsten, tin, and tantalum, from our products and supply chain.
  • Safe and secure disposal of unused or unwanted medications and medical waste (click here for more information about the safe disposal of sharps).
  • Training and information on chemical substances, hazardous substances and hazardous waste.
  • Reduction of water consumption and improved efficiency of water utilities, including computerized sensors and automatic isolation valves.
  • Use of a clean, natural-gas-fired co-generation system at the Novato manufacturing facility. This co-generation system captures the heat generated by the generators to produce the steam we use in our production processes and is capable of generating 2 MW of electricity.
  • Installed a photovoltaic system made up of 434 solar panels on the roof of the Lincoln Parking Garage at our San Rafael campus, which produces approximately 115 kWh of power (about equal to the electricity needed to power the 161 EV charging stations and other systems and equipment in the parking garage).
  • BioMarin offers a variety of reduce, reuse, recycle, and composting programs throughout its facilities and prioritizes beneficial reuse, energy recovery, and reduction of waste to landfills. For example, BioMarin recycles cardboard and reusable containers for bioprocessing materials, and our Novato manufacturing facility redirects copper sulfate and zinc sulfate solutions for metals recycling. BioMarin has also engaged with an end of life and surplus asset management vendor to find sustainable outlets for assets no longer needed by BioMarin that still have useful lives. We have donated surplus laboratory equipment to local schools and colleges in both the US and Ireland, and we donated freezers for COVID-19 related vaccine distribution.
  • Development and implementation of an Employee Commuter Program that provides incentives for alternative transportation to cut back on the number of vehicles on roadways and reduce emissions. These incentives include: offering flexible work hours to help employees avoid peak commute times; offering work from home, or the ability to work from alternative campuses closer to an employee’s home, and touchdown spaces and proper technology infrastructure to support this flexibility; partnering with the 511 Rideshare organization to establish a sophisticated “ride-match” database exclusively for BioMarin employees; providing preferential on-site parking for carpools, vanpools, and hybrid/alternative vehicles; sponsoring a Flexible Spending Account designed to encourage employees to set aside pre-tax money to pay for qualified public transportation expenses; and negotiating local business discounts within walking distance of our campuses to further reduce trip generation especially at lunch time. We also provide bicycle parking, lockers, and shower facilities to encourage employees to commute by bicycle, scooter or foot from nearby residential areas, and we provide 22 electric vehicle charging stations across our Novato, San Rafael, and Shanbally campuses. BioMarin also encourages employees to access the SMART train (a newly created commuter train serving Marin and Sonoma Counties in Northern California) and provides a shuttle service from the SMART train station in Novato to our Novato campus.

Additional Commitments

  • BioMarin Roadmap to Enhanced Greenhouse Gas Disclosures: BioMarin is committed to understanding the impact of our business practices on the environment and reducing our global emissions footprint. We further recognize the importance of managing our climate-related risks and acknowledging our stakeholders’ interests in our plans to continue to reduce our impact on the environment. In 2020, we laid out a roadmap for assessing and providing more transparency into our greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and mitigation efforts. In November 2021, we completed the first major milestone of our road map, assessing and quantifying our GHG emissions from our two manufacturing campuses in Novato, California and Shanbally, Ireland. In 2020, our Novato campus comprised approximately 450,000 square feet of space and included multiple manufacturing facilities that produce biologic and gene therapies and perform important pilot scale work. The campus also includes warehouses, laboratories, and office space supporting our commercial and clinical development initiatives. In 2020, our Shanbally campus included approximately 200,000 square feet of space and included a biologic manufacturing plant and supporting laboratories, as well as warehousing and office space. For 2020, activities at the two campuses generated the following GHG emissions:
  • The following is a breakdown of our GHG emissions by source from our Novato and Shanbally manufacturing campuses:
 GHG Emissions by Source
    • Our cogeneration system generates electricity for use in our manufacturing processes, and is critical for assuring our ability to operate based on the fact that we are located at the end of the PG&E grid, which causes common surges, spikes, and electrical failures. Our cogeneration system provides a stable, uninterrupted energy source when this occurs. We also rely on our cogeneration units during public safety power shutoffs experienced during severe weather.
    • In addition to providing a stable source of energy, these units, with our large boilers, also generate steam and hot water used by our industrial processes and large HVAC systems. When producing steam and hot water, our cogeneration system reduces the amount of energy that is wasted via heat recovery, thus reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
    • Included in the other category are emissions related to smaller HVAC systems, back-up generators, and maintenance of refrigerant-containing equipment.
  • In accordance with our road map, we also developed a standard for the collection and verification of the above GHG data that aligns reporting of this information with the Principles for Effective Disclosure section of the Recommendations of the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD).
  • Moving forward, we plan to continue to gain a better understanding of our footprint and any potential opportunities. By the end of 2023, with robust multi-year data collected in accordance with internationally recognized standards, BioMarin will have the necessary foundation to begin to assess the most impactful and cost-efficient mitigation strategies to minimize our carbon footprint.
  • Global Trade and Transport: BioMarin manages its operations and global supply chain in compliance with applicable export, import, and trade compliance laws, including those related to trade embargoes and economic sanctions, export control, boycott, cargo security, import classification and valuation, origin, marking, and free trade agreements to meet the needs of its patients and shareholders.
  • Human Trafficking and Slavery: BioMarin is committed to keeping its supply chain and operations free from human slavery, human trafficking, and forced labor. For more information or to view our statement regarding human trafficking, see BioMarin’s California Transparency in Supply Chains and UK Modern Slavery Act Statement.
  • Product Quality and Safety: BioMarin complies with all regulations and laws pertaining to reporting on adverse events (AE) and special situation events (SSE). Any BioMarin employee who becomes aware of an AE or SSE must forward certain enumerated information within one business day to the Pharmacovigilance department.
  • Clinical Trials Practices: BioMarin is committed to the safety of patients and meeting all GxP regulations and policies.
    • Good Laboratory Practices
    • Human Subject Protection in Clinical Research
      • BioMarin-sponsored clinical trials are designed and conducted in accordance with all applicable laws and regulations.
      • Policies on ethical research are regularly reviewed and updated.
      • A monitoring and review system is in place.
      • All BioMarin-sponsored clinical trials are prospectively reviewed by a qualified Institutional Review Board or Independent Ethics Committee.
  • Responsible Sales and Marketing: BioMarin is committed to fair competition as a matter of corporate conduct. We abide by all laws that apply to marketing activities, including prohibiting:
    • False or misleading advertising;
    • Bribery of competitors’ or customers’ employees, and
    • Unfair comments about competitors’ products.

We’re also committed to doing business ethically and in compliance with both the letter and spirit of anti-bribery and anti-corruption (ABAC) laws. Read more in our ABAC policy.

Footnotes:

1 Data covers all buildings at the Novato and Shanbally manufacturing campuses.  Sources of Scope 1 emissions include combustion of fuels by stationary equipment and releases of refrigerants.

2 The location-based figure we have reported for our Scope 2 emissions is based on the amount of electricity purchased and the average emissions intensity of the grids on which our energy consumption occurs.  It does not account for the fact that we purchase electricity for both our Novato and Shanbally campuses that is generated from renewable sources like wind and solar.

3 Calculated according to methodologies at US 40 CFR 98 and 17 CCR 95000 et seq.

4 Calculated utilizing common conversion factors for energy use in Ireland (https://www.seai.ie/data-and-insights/seai-statistics/conversion-factors/).

 

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