Our Culture

Medicines360 Statement on Health & Equity

Health equity is achieved when everyone has equal opportunity to live their healthiest lives. Yet today, long-standing, structural barriers to reproductive health care continue to impact birthing people specifically, women of color, immigrants, and LGBTQ+ people. As a result, these identity driven barriers have limited their ability to access and receive culturally competent, quality productive health services and medicines, including Long-Acting Reversible Contraceptive (LARC) products.

As a nonprofit pharmaceutical company with a mission to catalyze equitable access, Medicines360 is committed to advancing health equity for birthing people both in the United States and around the globe. We seek to break down barriers by employing innovative approaches to increase access to critical drugs and devices for underserved communities.

A Principled Belief

We believe that affordable coverage of health services is essential. Medicines360 is aligned with the health equity framework put forth by the Center for Disease Control & Prevention, which posits that no patient should be disadvantaged from achieving their full health potential because of their “social position or other socially determined circumstances.”

Unfortunately, historically marginalized communities face lower rates of health insurance coverage, higher rates of discrimination by providers, and other structural barriers to care – resulting in worse health outcomes overall.

Moreover, investment into drug development and clinical trials for women’s health conditions remains limited across the pharmaceutical sector, with the pipeline of innovative treatments in the later stages of development exceedingly sparse – disproportionally impacting marginalized communities. We support the National Women’s Health Network and Sister Song’s principled belief that affordable coverage of all reproductive health services and medicines – as well as “comprehensive, medically accurate, and culturally competent discussion” of these medicines and services – are unequivocally essential to “truly meet the health and life needs of every woman.”

Making Vital Women’s Health Products Affordable and Accessible for Underserved Communities

As a mission-driven nonprofit organization, Medicines360’s work to introduce products that target gaps, enhance choice, and improve affordability, as well as our policy advocacy work is aimed at addressing inequities within our health care system. For example – in 2015, we introduced a hormonal intrauterine device (IUD) – into U.S. markets and made this birth control option available at a substantially lower price to 340B clinics. Since launch, more than 400,000 units have been distributed to approximately 2,500 publicly funded providers throughout the United States, including Federally Qualified Health Centers (FQHCs), Title X clinics, Sexually Transmitted Infection (STI) testing sites and beyond. In addition, we have conducted clinical research and led state and federal advocacy efforts to improve reproductive health equity.

Finally, we believe that our best work can only be achieved through a culture built on mutual respect and trust. As such, in our role as employer, research organization, product developer, and public health advocate, we commit to nurturing cultural practices and behaviors that support diverse voices, perspectives, and experiences.

In demonstration of our fidelity to the principles of equity and health equity, we will continue to advocate for a comprehensive approach with diverse stakeholders to ensure that contraceptive options and reproductive services are made available, eliminating socially determined barriers to care.

Medicines360 Core Values

Integrity

We seek to consistently align our words and actions with our values to create relationships based on honesty, accountability, learning and trust among staff and external partners. We commit to ensure that at every turn our decision-making and actions reflect our organizational values and beliefs as establishing trust is vital to organizational success.

Compassion

Acting with compassion is the emotional or empathic response to perceived suffering or discomfort, which results in an authentic desire to listen and to help. At Medicines360, we recognize the complexities of life and commit to being non-judgmental and open minded to meet our staff, partners, and stakeholders where they are. This is an ever-expanding practice designed to improve work-life integration and influence our office culture and build trust by creating the conditions for others to be successful in their personal and professional pursuits.

Equity

Our nation’s history is beset with practices and policies that have precluded full societal participation by groups of people based on their race, gender, ethnicity, or other identity markers, resulting in serious yet solvable socio-economic disparities. Healthcare is no exception. The pursuit of equity is at the heart of our work as we believe that no one should be disadvantaged from living healthily simply because of their social position or other socially determined circumstances. As a result, we commit to advancing equity across our organizational functions and the communities in which we operate to ensure that access and opportunity are available to all. Advancing equity will come from curiosity, knowledge sharing, communication and understanding of differences and lived experiences.

Collaboration

We prioritize collaboration as it improves the way that groups work together to solve problems. This leads to more innovative, efficient processes, increased success and feeling valued. As a mission-driven organization, Medicines360 exists in relationship to others; and to accomplish our objectives means communicating openly, seeing others’ points of view, and emphasizing the needs of the collective we over the individual self. Through listening to and learning from others, we embrace a spirit of humility and commit to co-creating solutions to reach our collective and individual goals.

Transparency

We commit to promoting an open, inclusive, and participatory work environment; one where information is communicated clearly and timely to ensure that all staff have the shared knowledge, understanding and motivation necessary to deliver on our mission. This includes operating as a learning organization; rooted in the belief that creating and transferring knowledge contributes to internal and external trust building and organizational improvement.

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  1. Kaiser Family Foundation. Women’s Health Insurance Coverage. Accessed June 2022
  2. The Lancet. Measuring contraceptive method mix, prevalence, and demand satisfied by age and marital status in 204 countries and territories, 1970–2019: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2019. Accessed August 2022
  3. Sully EA et al., Adding It Up: Investing in Sexual and Reproductive Health 2019, New York: Guttmacher Institute, 2020, https://www.guttmacher.org/fact-sheet/investing-sexual-and-reproductive-health-low-and-middle-income-countries
  4. AVIBELA is not available in the United States. In the US, our hormonal IUD is marketed under the name LILETTA®.