Code Of Ethics

On the Importance of Ethics in the Group and the Process of Writing the Ethical Code

Naturally, the field of pharmaceuticals, nutritional supplements, medical equipment and devices has an impact on the health and lives of people; and therefore, it necessitates a great deal of financial and ethical responsibility.  Neopharm has always ascribed importance to the Group’s professional rules of ethics and requires its employees to conduct themselves accordingly, in a manner that is proper and fitting.  Ethics are expressed in the Group in the decision making process and the ongoing management, both among the organization’s employees and when working with customers, business partners and suppliers.

Neopharm believes that its employees’ commitment to humane and ethical conduct is essential for its success as one of Israel’s leading companies in the field of healthcare. Neopharm’s vision is to provide leading  innovative solutions to improve quality of life, while creating maximum value for its customers, business partners, employees and shareholders.  As part of its fulfilling this vision and acknowledging the importance of creating a written code that incorporates the ethical rules, Neopharm has formulated a code of ethics in cooperation with its employees. This process was designed to create a clear language that defines the rules of conduct that will guide the employees in their work with the Group’s stakeholders.

Over 150 of the Group’s employees and managers took part in the process of formulating this code of ethics.  Interviews were held with external stakeholders in Israel and around the world, including business partners, doctors, pharmacists, suppliers, associations and medical institutions.

For the purpose of making this ethical code accessible to daily business life, Neopharm has chosen to present it with reference to the stakeholders, and to incorporate ethical issues that are characteristic of the Group’s regular dealings.

Neopharm Employees

Neopharm’s success and status as a leading company is derived first and foremost from its human resource.  As Neopharm employees, we consider ourselves committed to promote the success of the Group, with loyalty and dedication and maintaining the highest ethical and moral standards.

Professional Leadership and Excellence

• We aspire to excel and lead while marking the way for the business environment in which we work.
• We espouse initiative and creativity in our work as a group and on an individual basis, in order to foster business leadership.
• We work professionally, without compromises, and ensure our in-depth understanding of the professional know-how, the Group’s procedures and the various skills required to implement our duties.
• Our work is conducted in a pre-planned organized and thorough manner.
• We are committed to accuracy, clarity and the truth in any documentation that is executed, including the financial statements, accounts, work hours, and periodic feedback.
• In order to minimize problems, we monitor all activity and draw conclusions from problems that have occurred.  We protect the Group’s resources and strive to make work processes more efficient, to reduce expenses and ensure the proper maintenance of the Group’s equipment and facilities.

Humane and Equitable Work Environment   

• We are committed to respecting others and their worldview, to enable every one’s right to speak and be heard, while ensuring civilized conversation and debate.
• We believe that personal acquaintance between employees, cooperation between the Group’s departments and companies and team work lead to better outcomes.
• We are aware that we must represent the Group in an appropriate and respectable manner, both in terms of our appearance and our written and oral expressions.
• When using social networks or electronic mail, we must ensure to clearly differentiate between our personal opinions and those of Neopharm.
• We are cognizant that the laws pertaining to libel, protection of privacy and trademarks, and the provisions of the Ministry of Health are also in force across the web.  Our comments in the name of the Group, including on social networks and electronic mail, must be executed only after receipt of authorization in advance from the relevant party.
• We refrain from discussing sensitive and controversial topics in the name of the Group, and ensure that we only comment, in the name of the Group, on subjects for which we have sufficient professional knowledge.

Decency and Integrity

• We ascribe importance to decency in our activities, including the prevention of corruption, bribery, impartiality and extraneous considerations.  We act fairly and with integrity and avoid situations in which our loyalty to the Group and its stakeholders is likely to conflict with our personal interests.
• As part of our relationship with our customers, service providers and/or business partners, we avoid receiving and giving gifts and benefits (in money or money’s worth) that may, even superficially, appear to constitute an attempt to receive preferential treatment, a change in a decision or personal gain in exchange for said.  In any event, we act according to the Group’s procedures that relate to receiving and giving gifts.
• We are obligated to report to the relevant parties regarding any conflict of interests and/or suspicion of conflict of interests between us and the stakeholders and regarding any suspicion of fraud or theft.
• We ensure to meet the specifications of the Group’s procedures that prohibit the use of internal information, and ensure that any transfer of information relating to Neopharm will be conducted in accordance with the accepted methods of distribution in the Group and only after receipt of explicit authorization to do so by the relevant parties.
• We comply with the law and conduct ourselves in accordance with the Group’s procedures and its agreements with other companies.

Neopharm Managers

• We work regularly to foster the Group’s economic growth in the development of new initiatives and in locating business opportunities.
• We foster an organizational culture that encourages our employees toward cooperation and excellence and helps strengthen Neopharm as a leading group.
• We are committed to conducting ourselves in accordance with the ethical code and work to assimilate it while assuming responsibility and providing a personal example.
• We encourage a learning-focused environment that expresses an open door policy for questions and consultation regarding professional and personal issues.
• We ensure reporting problems and malfunctions, in real time, and address them accordingly.
• We strive to create work conditions that will ensure the safety, security and well-being of our employees.
• We invest resources in the professional development of our employees, their empowerment and provide them with the tools and skills necessary for their success.
• We work to create a pleasant and conducive work environment, and we relate to our employees with fairness, humanity and respect.
• We are opposed to harassment and detest any type of discrimination based on race, sex, gender, religion or special needs and avoid it both in the employee recruitment and selection stage and at the time of their employment.
• We work to create employment diversity and ensure to suit our work environment to the diverse needs of the different populations.
• We work to promote our employees in the Group based only on relevant considerations.
• We offer professional and personal support to our employees and display sensitivity and understanding of their needs in situations of crisis or distress.
• We acknowledge the importance of our employee’s well-being, and are aware of the need for a balance between the employees’ personal and familial needs and their commitment to the needs of the Group.
• We work to formulate internal procedures in an efficient manner that will reduce Neopharm’s exposure, as much as possible, to risks and at the same time, will not hamper the regular work management.

Neopharm and its Customers

We consider our customers’ satisfaction to be a supreme value at the Group and strive to lead in terms of quality of the service and products we market.

• We ascribe importance to the creation of long-term relationships with our customers.
• We make a constant effort to provide all of our customers with professional, available, proactive and polite service.
• We ensure reliability and integrity when working with customers.
• We are committed to abiding by the agreements and schedules established with our customers, with the understanding that our reliability is at the basis of our business activity.
• We are committed to maintaining the confidentiality of our customers’ information and their privacy.

Patients

• We undertake to provide patients with efficient and safe healthcare services and products.
• We make an effort to provide optimal service to patients and to provide professional solutions that meet their needs.
• We attribute importance to a maximal degree of availability to the patients, understanding the serious responsibility derived from our activity in the healthcare field.

Consumers

• We invest resources to supply the consumers of our products with the best products and technologies, including the tools necessary to use them and suit them to the changing needs of the market and scientific advancement.
• We ascribe importance to the providing of professional, personal and polite service to our customers.
• We ensure to maintain a dialogue with the consumers in order to continually improve the level of our service.
• We ensure to maintain storage and distribution systems based on proper rules of distribution and the Group’s system of equality.

Healthcare Professionals – Doctors, Pharmacists, Nurses

• We cooperate with healthcare professionals who work with us to promote the health of the patients.
• We transfer precise, reliable and up-to-date information regarding the products we market.
• We pay great attention to providing professional and accessible service to healthcare professionals in order to enable them to provide the optimal treatment to their patients.
• We provide professional and business support to pharmacists who work with us, with regard to the products we market and help them develop a pharmacy system in the community.

Medical and Scientific Institutions and Organizations

• We make an effort to understand the needs of the medical and scientific institutions that work with us and foster reciprocal cooperation that will enable them to provide the optimal treatment to their customers.
• We provide professional and polite service to the medical and scientific institutions, and ensure the supply and integrity of the products and services in a quick and responsible fashion.

Neopharm and Its Business Partners

We are proud to market the products of our business partners, and use this partnership as leverage for success, excellence and creating added value.

• We are committed to a continuous and focused organizational effort in order to lead the sale of our partners’ products through market development and increasing the number of products that are sold.
• We create added value for our business partners through initiative and innovation that are expressed in locating business opportunities in Israel and around the world and in providing leading solutions in the fields of our activity.
• We provide our partners with reliable and professional service, and work dependably, with integrity and transparency, while submitting precise and up-to-date reports regarding our activity.
• We work to create long term relationships with our partners, understanding that an in-depth understanding of the common interests and management in good faith will help foster mutual success.
• We ensure to keep up-to-date on the rules and regulations  in the field of healthcare and to become familiar with the market needs in order to increase our success and the success of our business partners.

Neopharm and its Service Providers

We consider our relationship with our service providers to be a partnership that constitutes an important component of our ability to meet the tasks and challenges that exist in the field of healthcare.

• We provide the information and tools necessary for our suppliers in order for them to meet their goals.
• We select suppliers based on professional criteria, negotiate with them fairly and respect our agreements with them.
• We provide a safe, healthy and supportive work environment for the suppliers who work at the Group’s facilities and ensure that they uphold the labor laws with regard to their employees.

Neopharm and the Authorities

We keep an open channel for professional dialogue with the regulators and government authorities and understand the importance of the regulation.

• We undertake to act in accordance with the regulatory specifications, work procedures and the authorities assigned to us.
• We ensure accuracy and reliability of the messages that the Group publicizes.
• As part of our commitment to the sale of quality products and services, we strive to reach a fundamental understanding of the law and the relevant standards, and refrain from management that may harm the quality of the product, its safety or the meeting of the legal requirements.
• We ensure to protect fair competition and market our products in a responsible and professional manner.
• We invest resources in order to meet international standards and use this as leverage to lead the business management in the Israeli market.

Responsibility for the Environment and the Community

As a Group that leads in the field of healthcare in Israel, we are cognizant of the connection between health and the environment and community, and relate to the environmental influences of our activity and the community in which we operate.

Environment

• We are committed to protecting the environment in the personal and public work space.
• As part of our business activity, we purify environmental pollution using advanced technologies and lead various projects related to environmental issues.
• As part of our joint work, we assume environmental responsibility and, as much as possible, we try to reduce the impact it has on services, products and raw materials used by our Group.  We undertake to recycle, conserve water and electricity and reduce the emission of the Group’s fleet of vehicles.

Community

• We are both attuned and aware of the needs of the community, and invest business and human resources to provide a suitable solution to these needs.
• We help create a positive social change through cooperation with social organizations and consider our employees’ volunteer activity an important part in strengthening the relationship with the community.
• We attribute special importance to employing members of the special needs community, due to our belief that we must work to create a society that accepts differences and that is committed to equal opportunities.

Application of the Ethical Code

• Neopharm employees work according to the provisions of the different laws, including the provisions of the law, procedures and rules to which Neopharm is committed in the framework of its activity in the pharmaceuticals and medical equipment sector.
• Neopharm’s ethical code is designed to serve as a guide and compass in those cases for which the provisions of the law or the Group’s procedures do not provide a solution and for which discretion is required regarding to the required method of action.
• The ethical code is binding on all of the Group’s employees and reflects the Group’s philosophy with regard to the behavioral norms and appropriate values.  The aforesaid in the code does not contradict legal rulings and the Group considers it an additional ethical layer.
• To remove doubt, the ethical code does not entitle a third party a right with regard to the Group and its companies or with regard to any of its employees or executives.

Commitment to Act According to the Ethical Code

• Neopharm attributes importance to the process of implementing the ethical code within the Group’s companies and it’s becoming a part of the work routine and organizational culture within the Group.
• Neopharm has appointed a senior manager who is responsible for the ethical code.  The process of assimilation will be supported by an internal ethical committee that will focus on the adaptation of the relevant work processes to the ethical code.
• The efficacy of the ethical program will be measured over a period of time and regular control of the level of assimilation will be conducted.

Ethical Institutions – Reporting Methods, Protecting Complainants, Person in Charge of Ethics, etc.

• The person in charge of ethics in the Group is responsible for:
  • Serving as an address and providing solutions to the Groups’ employees with regard to ethical issues that arise during their regular work.
  • Increasing awareness of the management and its commitment to the implementation of the code.
  • Adapting the ethical code to the changing environmental conditions.
  • The ethics committee will meet periodically to discuss ethical issues that are raised by the Group’s employees and will assist in the process of the ethical code’s assimilation in the Group.

In order to submit inquiries regarding ethical issues that arise during regular work at Neopharm, we have made an email box available to the employees.