Novartis AG — Ethics Grade D

Novartis AG receives an overall ethics grade of D (32/100) on CancelCo's corporate accountability database. Sector: Pharmaceuticals. Market cap: Large Cap.

Category scores

• labor: 60
• privacy: 80
• consumer: 30
• environment: 75
• humanRights: 55

Documented incidents (3)

• Bribery Settlements in Greece and Vietnam (high, 2020) — Novartis paid over $729 million to settle US SEC and DOJ charges regarding horizontal bribery of healthcare professionals to prescribe Novartis products and for books and records violations.
• Michael Cohen Consulting Scandal (medium, 2018) — The company admitted to paying $1.2 million to Donald Trump's former attorney Michael Cohen for access to the administration, which the company later called a mistake.
• Zolgensma Data Manipulation (high, 2019) — The FDA stated Novartis submitted manipulated data during the approval process for the $2.1 million gene therapy Zolgensma, though the drug remained on the market.

Documented good deeds

• Malaria Initiative — Novartis has delivered over 1 billion courses of antimalarial treatment to endemic countries since 2001, largely on a non-profit basis.

Ethical alternatives

• Gilead Sciences — Stronger performance on access to medicine indices and fewer recent bribery scandals.