A Social Contract
From NellOne to the World
The Why
Few verticals in the world come in for more criticism and disdain than the pharmaceutical industry. There’s convincing dissatisfaction from Generation Jones, Baby Boomers, and the Silent Generation. Studies suggest that forty-three percent of the United States population believes that the industry cares more about money than helping people.
NellOne (N1) is determined to be a different kind of biopharmaceutical company. We exist to restore lives. We will provide a fair return to our shareholders, but we will always put the good of the people we serve at the heart of everything we do. This Social Contract is our promise to the eight billion people with whom we share this planet that N1 will keep them first.
Social Contract
We believe that knowledge and understanding are gifts that carry steep stewardship standards. We love our neighbors and believe in treating everyone equitably with dignity and respect, and we felt called to our mission by Jesus Christ. We also live in a reality where bringing drugs to market is a high-risk and expensive effort that demands significant outside investment. That investment risk is due a return. This social contract is how we balance the competing demands.
Our job is to create medicines that restore lives while delivering fair financial returns to our investors. We have supportive humanitarian investors who understand and finance the senior leadership vision. We strengthen their financial commitment by being capital efficient and using grants to the greatest extent possible to lower return targets and provide greater flexibility in our future pricing.
Determinedly Seek Equity-Free Funding
Our universal social contract has strong roots in how we fund product development – the greater our capital efficiency, the broader our pricing flexibility. Investors deserve returns on their capital at risk, and it is N1’s objective to achieve this return. However, operating in a lean and virtual model N1 reduces the required capital for product development. In winning grants and awards, we lower the private equity at risk and increase our future ability to serve the underserved. We aim to do good first.
Invest and Innovate
N1 invests substantial capital in improving the human condition and restoring lives worldwide. We will never cease investing in new products, increasing the cost efficiency of an existing product, understanding, improving safety, and exploring how current products may relieve suffering in new ways.
Quality, Safety, and Transparency
Sadly, the business pages are frequently headlined with stories of those who violate public trust for profit. Ethics and transparency in our business practices and corporate governance are non-negotiable. We do not serve ideas; we serve people. We believe in the dignity of the quality of human life. People are unique valuable, and inherently worth protecting. We are committed to passionately examining the safety of our product before, during, and after regulatory approval. We will report and act on any new safety data and always be open and transparent to benefit those who use our products. N1 exists to improve the human condition through healing and restoring lives; the force multiplier to our passion is sharing what we know, learn, and discover.
Pricing
Our work and products are valuable. N1 will achieve a fair and sustainable profit, but we will never surrender to profit over people. We will strive to make treatments affordable and accessible to people worldwide. The drug delivery system is complex; many parties, such as regulators, insurers, governments, and distributors, shape access and cost. We commit to working will each of them to restore lives. We will promote open and transparent formularies for patient benefit and provide discounts and rebates where we can make a difference. We will work with non-profits and NGOs to provide access to our medicines whenever we can.
Education
Outcomes are driven by education as well as by treatment. We will ethically communicate with and educate physicians, caregivers, advocacy groups, and patients about our medicines. We will do our best to provide data that informs medical professionals with tools to make patient decisions about when and how to treat our products.
Our Pledge
We are the senior leadership of N1, and we are Generation Jones. We have seen the pharmaceutical industry’s broad, inspired, life-saving innovation and good and regrettable times when people and companies have gotten it wrong. This Social Contract is our pledge and our legacy. Question us, call us out, and hold us accountable if we fall short in our commitment.
