Knowledge Partner Session 03: How Ethical Maturity Drives Economic Advantage: New Learnings from Healthcare
Mar 24, 2026 | 9:30 AM - 11:00 AM
Auditorium
Description
Organised by International Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers & Associations (IFPMA)
Integrity is increasingly recognized as a core driver of competitiveness in regulated and trust-dependent markets, shaping trade, investment, and supply-chain resilience. This session draws on research from the Business Ethics for APEC SMEs Initiative, where IFPMA serves as Industry Chair, titled “Deepening the Value of Business Ethics for SMEs” (2025). It examines how ethics maturity functions as economic infrastructure - reducing transaction costs, strengthening regulatory performance, and enabling market access. Utilizing health-related sectors as an innovative use case, the research reveals how integrity mechanisms are embedded and scaled across complex systems through industry associations, multinational standards, and partner networks, generating measurable economic advantage for small and medium-sized enterprises. A senior, multi-stakeholder panel from government, industry, and academia will explore the policy and ecosystem levers surfacing from new research that allow integrity to deliver sustainable growth, resilient supply chains, and long-term global prosperity for all sectors and stakeholders.
SPEAKERS:
- Sofie Melis, Director of Ethics & Compliance and Culture, IFPMA
- Dirk Brinckman, Chief Compliance Officer, Johnson & Johnson; Chair, Ethics and Business Integrity Committee and Chief Ethics and Compliance Officers Roundtable, IFPMA
- Noah Arshinoff, Faculty of Law, University of Ottawa; APEC Research Author
This session is led by partner organisations and may not reflect the views of the OECD.
