An Analysis of Health and Safety Practices at Sanofi, United Kingdom

This report provides an in-depth analysis of the health and safety practices implemented by Sanofi in its United Kingdom operations. It begins with an executive summary highlighting the company's commitment to employee well-being and its various policies designed to ensure a safe working environment. The report then delves into the inspection of Sanofi's research & development and manufacturing units, detailing the company's approach to treating chronic disorders and the three-step mass manufacturing process. A significant portion of the report is dedicated to health and safety practices, including risk assessment, hazard control, and employee protection policies. It also highlights the importance of continuous risk determination, hazard vetting, and awareness programs. Furthermore, the report discusses specific policies such as workplace assessment, control of risk reduction, and the availability of medical surveillance. The report concludes by emphasizing the effectiveness of Sanofi's safety measures and its adherence to government guidelines, demonstrating a strong commitment to the health and safety of its employees.

Running head: HEALTH AND SAFETY PRACTICE IN SANOFI, UNITED KINGDOM
HEALTH AND SAFETY PRACTICE IN SANOFI, UNITED KINGDOM
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1HEALTH AND SAFETY PRACTICE IN SANOFI, UNITED KINGDOM
Executive Summary
Sanofi is one of the leading pharmaceutical companies across the globe producing drugs and
vaccines that cover a broad area of illnesses. Health and safety practices is a crucial subject
that should be maintained and regulated correctly to ensure every employee’s well-being. ON
inspecting the research & development and manufacturing units of Sanofi, it was observed
that they have designed various policies to ensure the safety and well-being of their
employees. The policies prove to be quite practical and they continuously work on the
policies to make it much better and more achievable.

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Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION......................................................................................................................3
DISCUSSION............................................................................................................................3
INSPECTION OF RESEARCH & DEVELOPMENT AND MANUFACTURING............3
HEALTH AND SAFETY PRACTICES...............................................................................4
CONCLUSION..........................................................................................................................7

3HEALTH AND SAFETY PRACTICE IN SANOFI, UNITED KINGDOM
INTRODUCTION
Sanofi is one of the most famous pharmaceutical companies across the globe. It was
established in 2004. Sanofi produces all kinds of pharmaceutical drugs, including prescription
drugs and over the counter drugs. Sanofi also has dedicated research laboratories where
researches are conducted extensively. The primary therapeutic areas that Sanofi covers are
the central nervous system, cardiovascular system, thrombosis, oncology, internal medicines,
diabetes and vaccines. The variety of medication they produce covers a much broader area
covering medical conditions such as atopic dermatitis, multiple sclerosis, various rare
ailments and epilepsy. According to their annual report of the year 2018, about 100,000
employees work under Sanofi across 100 countries and they have production units in 33
countries among which Sanofi in the United Kingdom is one of the biggest in terms of
production and new researches1. In this report, working and manufacture of medicines in the
research laboratory along with the health and safety practices they follow will be discussed in
details.
DISCUSSION
INSPECTION OF RESEARCH & DEVELOPMENT AND MANUFACTURING
The Research & Development team of Sanofi, United Kingdom, is quite strong with
employees like physicians, scientists, production and manufacturing engineers. The motto of
the research & Development team currently is treating various chronic disorders and the
1 Sanofi Report 2018 (Sanofi 2020) <https://www.sanofi.com/-/media/Project/One-Sanofi-
Web/Websites/Global/Sanofi-COM/Home/common/docs/investors/Sanofi-20-F-2018-EN-
PDF-e-accessible_02.pdf?la=en&hash=0E0CB0122FEDA3881B3857221DB9345A>
accessed 27 February 2020.

4HEALTH AND SAFETY PRACTICE IN SANOFI, UNITED KINGDOM
diseases which particularly do not have any cure or treatment. The mode in which their
research is progressing can be explained in a few points22:
 They are developing modern combination therapy approaches to treat the disease
successfully.
 They are developing multi-target therapies and drugs that can address numerous
diseases with the help of a single drug.
 Artificial Intelligence and Digital techniques are also given stress so that chronic
diseases can be addressed by these techniques and can be managed better.
 They are researching gene therapy techniques to make it more available to the
individuals requiring it.
The mass manufacturing procedure Sanofi use happens in three steps:
 Production: This is the first step which involves the production of the drug or vaccine.
In this step, the inoculum and other requirements are added in big fermenters and
production baskets with maintained conditions favourable for the production of the
drugs.
 Purification: Purification is the procedure in which the desired drug is isolated and
purified from the mixture of various biomolecules. Highest purity is maintained
during the collection of the desired medicine. The technique Sanofi mainly uses to
separate the desired drug is Liquid Chromatography.
 Packaging: The purified drug can not be sold as it is but it needs to be packed before
seeling it off. Various drugs are packed in different procedures. The drugs which are
2 'Research & Development - Sanofi' (Sanofi.com, 2020)
<https://www.sanofi.com/en/science-and-innovation/research-and-development> accessed 27
February 2020.

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isolated as small molecules are sold in the form of pills packed inside medicine strips,
liquid medicines are sold inside bottles and biologics are sold in vials. These are done
only after sterilizing the strips, bottles and vials respectively. Lastly, the ca[pping and
labelling process takes place.
HEALTH AND SAFETY PRACTICES
Health and Safety Practices are incredibly essential for any pharmaceutical companies
to ensure the safety of everyone, starting from the research & development team to the
manufacturing or production team. The Sharps Regulation is about a set of guidelines that the
employers of a company must keep in mind to ensure the ultimate safety and healthy working
conditions for the employees. It follows the principle of hierarchy of preventive and control
measures that are set by the Control of Substances Hazardous to Health Regulations.
It was seen that in both the departments that are Research & Development, as well as
the Manufacturing units, are in high-risk of contracting various diseases or infections because
of working with opportunistic and harmful pathogens. They also work with multiple
hazardous elements like heavy metals, organic solvents and chemical hazards to conduct
experiments that might cause harm to them. Sanofi has designed its health and safety policies
keeping these problems in mind3. Their safety approaches include:
 Continuous determination of risk before an experiment
 Risk minimization approaches are applied for all the situations
 Hazard Vetting method is used to detect discrepancies in an instrument
 Awareness is spread among the employees to prevent any form of mishappening
 A precise focus is kept on human and organizational factors in safety management
3 Hse.gov.uk (Hse.gov.uk, 2020) <https://www.hse.gov.uk/pubns/hsis7.pdf> accessed 27 February 2020.

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 Initiatives are developed on a regular basis to improve the safety measures during
travelling with hazardous elements
It is already discussed in the previous discussion that employees in Sanofi have a
work-life where they continuously need to work with hazardous substances. To ensure that
they are not exposed to the elements for a longer duration, and their well-being is maintained,
Sanofi has developed the following policies that include:
 Identification of the job or occupational hazard
 Workplace assessment
 Control of risk reduction and availability of medical surveillance to protect employees
health conditions
All these developed policies are built according to the global regulations regarding
health and safety practices in pharmaceutical companies. Apart from all these facilities, in
house doctors and nurses are always available for any emergency cases, and first aid is also
available in every department. The occupational hygiene, air exposure & it's quality and
biomonitoring techniques, are also looked after by experts to provide an environment for
better working and well-being of the employees.
Ergonomic injuries or the injuries that are caused by prolonged exposure to unsuitable
temperatures and vibrations, prolonged seating posture and repetitive strain in a hurt body
part are the most common type of injuries inflicting employees in research & development
units of a company44. These risk factors are not as harmful when individuals are exposed to it
for a short duration, but it gets harmful, or chronic employees are exposed to these conditions
for a more extended period. To prevent the employees from suffering these injuries, Sanofi
4 'Safety | Pfizer' (Pfizer.com, 2020) <https://www.pfizer.com/purpose/workplace-
responsibility/health-and-safety/safety> accessed 27 February 2020.

7HEALTH AND SAFETY PRACTICE IN SANOFI, UNITED KINGDOM
has given enough information to make them a bit more mobile and do daily exercises to
remove the fatigue their body is having. Other workplace environment is also regulated by
experts to facilitate their working in a more effortless.
The Research & Development and Manufacturing units of Sanofi that inspected are
well equipped with all kinds of safety measures like fire extinguishing devices emergency
exit gates to flee in times of emergencies. The employees are also provided with safety
measure appliances like eyewear, gloves and specially made aprons to prevent any harm to
the body in case of any mishappenings. Employees are also not allowed inside the laboratory
wearing anything that showed their skin to ensure higher safety55.
From all these safety measures that are taken by Sanofi Pharmaceutical Company, it
can be seen and evaluated that they are maintaining all the necessary steps to ensure
maximum health and safety of their employees and are continuously setting newer safety
guidelines so that no further threats appear. They also follow the government and various
other guidelines minutely to ensure utmost safety and well-being. Apart from these, the
higher officials of the company regularly conduct surveys across all the department tom
know about their thoughts on the safety guidelines of the company to further improve their
system
CONCLUSION
So we can conclude this paper by stating the safety measures, and health practices that
Sanofi has been practising are enough to keep the employees safe and sound. The continuous
evaluation of their safety guidelines is one of the practical and valid policies their company is
exhibiting currently. The precision with which they have designed every aspect of safety
5 'General Laboratory Safety Rules - Oklahoma State University' (2020)
<https://ehs.okstate.edu/general-laboratory-safety-rules.html> accessed 27 February 2020.

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policies are praiseworthy and would be undoubtedly helpful for the employees. The work
environment maintained within the laboratory premise is up to the standard as per the
government guidelines.