2023-06-12 16:10:04 ET
Illumina, Inc. (ILMN)
Special Call (2023 ESG Investor Event) Transcript
June 12, 2023, 12:00 PM ET
Company Participants
Salli Schwartz - Vice President of Investor Relations
Joydeep Goswami - Chief Financial Officer and Chief Strategy and Corporate Development Officer
Phil Febbo - Chief Medical Officer
John Frank - Chief Public Affairs Officer
Sharon Vidal - Head of Corporate Social Responsibility and ESG
Lisa Toppin - Global Head of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion
Conference Call Participants
Presentation
Operator
Good day attendees and welcome to the Illumina Incorporated ESG Investor Event. At this time, all participants are in listen-only mode. You may submit questions at any time through the ask-a-question box. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded.
I would now like to hand the conference over to Salli Schwartz, Vice President of Investor Relations. Please go ahead ma'am.
Salli Schwartz
Welcome everyone. Before we begin our scheduled program, we wanted to note our Sunday June 11th announcement that our Board of Directors has accepted the resignation of Francis deSouza as Illumina's Chief Executive Officer and as a Director effective Sunday, June 11th. As such, Francis will not be joining our event today. Let's go ahead and get started.
Welcome. Thanks for joining us at Illumina's third annual Virtual ESG Investor event. I am Salli Schwartz, Vice President of Investor Relations. Today, we may share information that could be considered forward-looking statements. You should refer to our SEC filings for a discussion of the risks and uncertainties that could cause results to differ materially from our current expectations. It is our intent that all statements regarding our financial results, our commercial activity made during today's discussion will be protected under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995.
In addition, the presentation today is based on our most recent CSR report and reflective of the 2022 calendar year and 2022 ESG reporting cycle. In this presentation, we use the terms materials and materiality to refer to topics that reflect Illumina's meaningful environmental, social, and governance impact. The use of such terms shall not be deemed to constitute an admission as to the materiality of any information in this report for purposes of any applicable securities laws or any other laws of the United States, nor are we using them as they are used in the context of financial statements and financial reporting.
Over the next hour, several of our senior leaders will provide an overview of Illumina's environmental, social and governance strategy, including Joydeep Goswami, Chief Financial Officer and Chief Strategy and Corporate Development Officer; Phil Febbo, Chief Medical Officer; John Frank, Chief Public Affairs Officer; Sharon Vidal, Head of Corporate Social Responsibility and ESG; and Lisa Toppin - Global Head of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion. We will then open it up for Q&A. If you didn't submit a question in advance, feel free to drop one in the chat at any time during the event.
I will now invite Sharon Vidal, Illumina's head of CSR and ESG to walk us through some key messages you can expect from today, provide an introduction to Illumina and an overview of our ESG strategy and governance.
Sharon Vidal
Thank you, Salli. To start, there are a few key things we'll focus on today. Number one, ESG is embedded in how we operate our business. Number two, we are focused on the most material, environmental, social, and governance efforts that support the Illumina mission and create long-term shareholder value. Number three, our ESG strategy is organized around five pillars; expand access to genomics, empower our communities, integrate sustainability, nurture our people, and operate responsibly. Number four, our ESG leadership position is built on a foundation of transparency and accountability with an emphasis on climate action and progressive human capital programs. Lastly, our fourth annual ESG report was released on June 5th, and it provides updates on our ESG programs, targets and progress. We'll cover some highlights in today's program, but we encourage you to review the full report available on the ESG tab of the investor page.
This April, Illumina celebrated our 25th anniversary, and for those of you who are new to our story, let me start with a little bit about who we are. At Illumina, we innovate at the intersection of biology, technology, and health, and we're re-imagining what's possible. This is the Genome era. Our mission is to improve human health by unlocking the power of the genome. It guides everything we do from business decisions to ESG efforts. So what does that look like in daily practice?
We serve customers across 155 countries allowing researchers in academic, government and commercial settings to better understand the genome and its role in predicting population health and disease. Our technologies and power healthcare providers with insights they need to provide patients battling cancer as well as rare genetic or infectious diseases with personalized diagnosis and groundbreaking therapies. Today, more than 1.2 billion patients benefit from covered access to genomics.
We provide powerful tools that can translate genomic data into climate action. Agrigenomics and research on biodiversity mean Illumina can be part of an impactful solutions for a more sustainable future and using 100% renewable electricity in our operations is just one example of how we're doing our part. And our people are the driving force behind all that we do. We are proud of our diverse global team and their desire to give back to the communities where they live and work.
Now, environmental, social and governance or ESG is a construct central to the way we operate and core to our business. Our ESG vision is to deepen our impact on human health by serving as a champion for patients, our communities, our people, and the planet. Making genomics useful and accessible for all is our purpose and our promise to our customers and partners around the globe who work toward new life transforming discoveries every day, and to get there, we're focused on those five areas of impact.
Accelerating access to genomics by driving innovation, affordability, democratization of genomics and data diversity by empowering our communities through philanthropy, employee volunteerism, investing locally and supporting STEM education for a more prepared diverse future workforce, through integrating sustainability with climate action and efforts at our sites, in our value chain and in our product development, nurturing our people by fostering an inclusive culture, investing in the development of our people and offering a suite of innovative benefits, and operating responsibly through good corporate governance practices by conducting ourselves with honesty, integrity, and respect for all, and ensuring that the technology we create and the data we collect are used safely, ethically, and responsibly.
At Illumina, we are innovating to improve lives and by incorporating ESG into our business, we're reinforcing our mission and commitment to delivering long-term performance and value creation. Our ESG governance structure facilitates accountability and transparency at all levels in the organization. It supports our strategic management of material, ESG issues, and a long-term value creation mindset.
Last year, we moved to deepen the Board's engagement on ESG and we've expanded the remit of the nomination and governance committee to help oversee our ESG matters as a supplement to specific topics that are already delegated to other board committees. And to ensure the integration of ESG priorities into our business we've also established an ESG executive steering committee, which includes our most senior leaders across functions.
Our strategy and reporting approach align to international frameworks and reflect our commitment to that transparency and accountability I mentioned. Our ESG focus area is linked to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals or SDGs, and we support all 17 goals, but have identified eight that we can most uniquely influence and are most material to Illumina. These concepts of health, education, reduced inequalities and innovation have always been core to who we are as a company and directly linked to our mission.
Our reporting is based on GRI, SASB, and TCFD frameworks. This year, our CSR report includes an overview linking our focus areas, key objectives, progress on our 2030 targets and connection to the UN SDGs at the target level. We have committed to net zero to science-based targets, and we have disclosed detailed diversity demographic data, and all of this information is available directly from our investor site and the main Illumina website.
I'm excited for you to hear from other members of our leadership team who will share additional details about our focus areas and some key highlights from each. I'd now like to introduce Joydeep Goswami, our Chief Financial Officer and Chief Strategy and Corporate Development Officer.
Joydeep Goswami
Thank you and to everyone who has joined us for this e ESG focused event. We see ESG as a key strategic driver for delivering value to our shareholders and extended stakeholders. Furthering our ESG strategy, advances our business strategy and reinforces our mission to improve human health by unlocking the power of the genome. As CFO, my team and I are looking for ways to ensure that we are protecting the long-term value of the company, and that includes both financial and non-financial measures related to risk and opportunities. ESG provides a lens to evaluate those risks and opportunities incorporating the voices of all our stakeholders.
As stewards of our fiduciary responsibility, we maintain a strong emphasis on managing risk, driving performance, and ensuring business integrity. We leverage our existing financial governance approach, including accountability, risk analysis, internal monitoring, reporting transparency, and data assurance. We recognize that investing in our ESG initiatives can drive growth, create innovation, attract talent, mitigate risk, enable resilience, and contribute to Illumina's long-term success. That long-term is grounded in focusing on ways our mission can drive impact and value.
Last year, we shared that after three years of CSR reporting, we revisited our materiality assessment to validate the most material ESG issues. We found that our focus areas remained relevant and continue to reflect the most material topics for Illumina and that existing efforts tied to our business strategy are appropriately prioritized. We have summarized the material topics per focus area and we will explore each in greater detail. They are accelerate access to genomics, empower our communities, integrate environmental sustainability, nurture our people, and operate responsibly.
I would like to invite Phil Febbo, our Chief Medical Officer to now share more about our signature pillar accelerate access to genomics.
Phil Febbo
Thank you, Joydeep. The last few years have shown the promise of genomics that exists around us. It's transforming personalized medicine and saving lives. The science is being applied to every step of cancer care and reducing the diagnostic odyssey for those suffering from rare genetic diseases. Revolutionary therapies are hitting the clinic and reinventing how we fight an expanding number of conditions. Genomic data has become the blueprint for everything from diagnostics to precision therapeutics.
Each day, researchers are learning more about genetic variants that will help unravel the world's most devastating diseases and public health challenges. Yet genomic data is glaringly imbalanced underrepresenting the diversity of global populations. To successfully fulfill our mission to improve human health, we must expand access to genomic technology in medical care to improve outcomes regardless of social status, income or geographic location, and we must continue to bridge the gaps to ensure the individuals receiving genomic analysis represents our global diversity.
As Francis shared with our customers at the Illumina Genomics Forum in the fall, we believe genomics should be available for the many, not just the rich or the lucky. We are committed to accelerating access to genomics, to realize health equity for billions of people around the world. To achieve that, we are driving innovation and affordability to lower the cost of sequencing and enhance the value beyond the cost per genome, continue to deliver breakthrough technology and workflows and to invest in strategic acquisitions and collaborations.
This year, we put that in action with the release of the NovaSeq 6000Dx , the first FDA registered and CE marked IVD, high throughput sequencer. We also announced the Illumina Complete Long Read technology to address the small proportion of the genome that has been historically challenging to map, and we launched the NovaSeq X series with breakthrough innovations including XLEAP- SBS Chemistry for revolutionary throughput, scale, sustainability and accuracy with transformative economics.
We also recognize that the power of our technology means little if it is not accessible or does not represent our global diversity. We are proud to support projects that enable catalytic philanthropy to support low and middle income countries, projects aimed to increase the genomics data diversity, and projects that expand the reach of genomics with payer coverage, genomic literacy and patient advocacy.
Families of children with undiagnosed genetic diseases often face an uncertain and unpredictable future. Their diagnostic journeys may take up to seven years in developed countries while in low and middle income geographies many families never know the cause of their child's suffering. Our pro bono iHope program has now impacted over 1700 patients since inception, and we have seen patients from iHope sites in low and middle income countries who receive a molecular diagnosis, had comparable rates of change management to patients from high income countries of around 70%. That is why we are so excited about the expansion to build out the iHope Genetic Health Program and our newest expansion in China in partnership with the March of Dimes Birth Defects Foundation.
This year we also saw the impact of the Pathogen Genomics Initiative, a public-private partnership with Illumina, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, public health agencies and other industry partners. For the African PGI portion, in 2019, only seven countries of the 55 African Union members had next generation sequencing capacity in public health laboratories. There's now capacity in 31 public health laboratories and Illumina sequencers are in 41 of the 55 African countries with 20 of those countries linked to our catalytic philanthropy helping bridge the gap to access. This new infrastructure was put to immediate use beyond COVID in 2022 to manage outbreaks of Ebola and monkeypox, so truly demonstrating an impact on the expansion of access to genomics.
It is vital that in order for health equity to be realized, there is a scientific imperative to increase the diversity of genomic data as well as an ethical responsibility to overcome systemic disparities that have existed. Currently, 87% of individuals included in genomic studies of disease risk are European ancestry. Increasing the equitable representation of genomic data will allow for therapies and solutions to be attuned to a broader set of genomes, decreasing this bias in our medicine for the future.
We are proud to support projects like Singapore's SG100K project, collaborations like the Alliance for Genomic Discoveries and the New York Genome Centers Polyethnic-1000 project that are helping to diversify the data and bring equity and access toward democratizing genomics. Working toward a more equitable and sustainable future through the positive progress of genomics is central to the work we do each day.
I'm going to now pass it off to Sharon Vidal, our Global Head of Corporate Social Responsibility to talk us through the community and sustainability lens.
Sharon Vidal
Thank you, Phil. Each of our focus areas are interconnected and empowering our communities is one way we create shared value, create a positive impact in the communities where we work and live, and help connect our employees to our mission. Part of our employee value proposition is our strong commitment to giving back to communities and the extraordinary talent that we seek. They are looking for a company that's purpose driven and operates responsibly. With programs like skills-based volunteering, paid volunteer time off, volunteer rewards and donation matches, we make it easy for employees to get involved, give back, and most importantly to connect with our mission.
A couple of examples of impact in action from 2022 include support for Ukraine with grants targeting rare disease patients and pediatric cancer patients that were displaced from the war, and we also supported Ukrainian medical students that were displaced and helped them to continue their studies at the University of Cambridge. To create the STEM workforce that will be needed in the future for the interdisciplinary approach of genomics, we prioritized programs that support equitable access to STEM education and genomic literacy, knowing that talent is everywhere, but opportunity is not.
Our annual DNA based STEM outreach campaign reached over 90,000 learners this year, and in the U.S. over 50% targeted low income and communities of color. Empowering our communities connects to all of our focus areas, and that includes our sustainability efforts. We committed to investments in sustainability and environmental justice efforts like our project with Grid Alternatives, a nonprofit providing access to renewable energy, to low income under-resourced communities and tribal nations, and it includes job training and placement in the solar industry as part of enabling a just transition to a future low-carbon economy, and that's just one element of our holistic approach to integrate sustainability.
Our climate action plan and sustainability approach are connected to our mission of improving human health with -- human health and the health of environment being deeply intertwined. While climate creates risk for all organizations and represents a threat to human health, the environment and the global economy, it also represents opportunities for genomics to play a positive role in climate action.
So this critical topic is not only important for sustainable operations for Illumina, but it's also deeply connected to our business. With the importance of sustainability to human health, we have set bold, ambitious targets on climate action. We focus on integrating sustainability in our facilities, our supply chain, our impact on the full value chain and our products, all to minimize our own environmental footprint and beyond.
Last year, we shared our science-based targets and our net zero commitments and verification. We've aligned to a 1.5-degree climate scenario and created near-term and long-term goals on our path providing accountability and transparency on our progress with approval and independent validation from the science-based target initiatives. We've put these commitments into action and made a lot of progress at our facilities. We increased renewable electricity from 59% in 2021 to 100% in 2022. That 100% renewable electricity was achieved by a combination of on-site solar, purchased renewable electricity and renewable energy credits to close the gap in our Scope 2 emissions.
We also achieved carbon neutrality in our direct operations covering both Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions. On the path of decarbonization, we've applied the science-based target initiative beyond value chain mitigation approach and employed green e- certified carbon offsets to our natural gas and Scope 1 emissions while we work toward those long-term direct reduction efforts. And when you normalize by revenue, we've reduced our emission intensity by 57% since our 2019 baseline and have a number of achievements around the globe on green building and water efficiency measures.
Now in the value chain, we are much earlier in our journey tackling Scope 3 than our Scope 1 and 2. But with 87% of our footprint sitting in our value chain, there are tremendous opportunities. Our most material categories of focus within Scope 3 will include primarily the materials we purchase and how we move those around the globe, both raw materials and deliveries for our customers. So far, we have seen reductions in several categories we've been focusing on and identified a number of initiatives that will deepen the impact.
For example, we engaged with AWS on the carbon footprint of genomic data storage and those modifications helped us realize an 89% reduction of emissions associated with that storage. And while we have made some progress, there are challenges associated with an absolute target while growing as a company year-over-year. We remain committed to our net zero path, and there's a number of projects that will impact our trajectory as they implement and mature.
One of the most exciting examples of this is linked to the integration of design for environment in our product development and seen in action with the launch of our newest sequencer series, the NovaSeq X. Integrating design for environment principles in our products meant transformational innovation, not just incremental improvements in packaging or waste or weight, we intentionally focused on improving the sustainability, and we reinvented everything, every piece of technology from chemistry to engineering, we heard the feedback from our customers on packaging waste, and we took action.
We saw the data on the impact of cold chain on emissions across our value chain and we took action. To quantify this impact, we engaged a third-party to complete our first product life cycle assessment. And the life cycle assessment evaluates the environmental impact from raw material extraction to production to customer use and end of life. We compared the NovaSeq 6000 reagents to the NovaSeq X reagents. And on a per gigabase unit, we found a 61% reduction in climate impact. From implementing ambient ship, no dry ice, a 90% reduction in packaging and waste, the use of biopolymers or sugarcane-derived plastics and 50% less plastic mass and volume. These enhancements to make our products more sustainable are important not only to our customers, but to the whole genomics ecosystem and to the planet. They are also a market differentiator with sustainability frequently part of RFPs and tender requests for commercial sales.
In addition to creating sustainable products, our technologies are being leveraged for sustainability applications for a healthier planet. Leveraging genomics in this way is a tremendous opportunity for positive impact on climate action for health economics, for protection of biodiversity and sustainable food security with average genomics.
Coming out of COVID-19, we know there will be new pathogens in the future. Climate change and environmental encroachment are leading to expansion of vectors, accelerating the emergence of some diseases and creating risk to public health. But effective global surveillance, along with efforts to protect our environment can prevent the next pathogenic outbreak from becoming another global pandemic.
Climate change is also disproportionately impacting vulnerable populations and deepening health and equities. Diversifying the genomic data and providing broader access will help future solutions be more attuned to the genomes of the diverse world and decrease the bias in the medicine for the future. Lastly, genomics is an innovative tool to combat climate change and better understand our natural capital and we've seen tremendous applications of this.
Each year, we provide a graph called the Illumina agricultural greater good and support research that will increase the sustainability, productivity and nutritional density of agriculturally important crop and livestock species. This year, the grant was awarded to the SENAI Innovation Institute for Biosynthetic in Brazil, their focus on CV [ph] cultivation to explore the genetic potential from carbon sequestration and food security.
Similarly, our technology is being applied in research for conservation of biodiversity and natural capital. Our partnership with the Minderoo Foundation in Australia is leveraging the power of genomics to accelerate the scientific understanding of marine ecosystems and help conserve marine biodiversity. And to support this effort, we put a NextSeq on our research book. In 2022, the United Nations Biodiversity Conference ended with a landmark agreement to guide global action on nature, aiming to address biodiversity loss, restore ecosystems and protect indigenous rights.
Genomics is poised to support a science-based data approach and only a sample of the opportunities to apply genomics for good in the future. Now sustainability is a topic that our employees are passionate about, and they care about how we do the work as much as they are caring about what we do.
I'm going to turn it over to Lisa Toppin, our Global Head of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion to share more about the people lens.
Lisa Toppin
Thank you, Sharon. Under our nurture our people focus area, we are committed to engaging extraordinary talent and helping them thrive. This means we practice diversity, equity and inclusion in all we do. It includes investing in our people and creating a culture of care.
Last year, our U.S. workforce included 52% minority representation and we saw an increase across all of the diversity demographic target areas since our 2019 baseline. This includes a 5% increase of women in our director and above role a 9% increase in minority representation in our director and above roles and in our communities of black, Hispanic or Latino, Native or Pacific Islander and two or more ethnicities, we saw a 3% increase in U.S. leadership and a 1% increase in the workforce.
These are all part of an increasing representation to build a global workforce that represents our communities. In addition to representation; we have confirmed a zero net gap in pay for the fourth consecutive year. This means there is no statistically significant difference in pay for the same or similar work regardless of gender, ethnicity or race. It is equal pay for equal work.
Our DEI program is anchored in the philosophy of practice. We invite everyone to start where they are and continue to work appreciating that there is always more to learn. Our DEI governance makes all the way to our Board and Compensation Committee with deep collaboration on our ESG programming. Our strategic approach includes acquiring and developing diverse talent, building inclusive leadership, communicating with transparency and enhancing equitable processes.
Our employee resource groups provide career development and are the cornerstone of our DEI engagement. This year, we grew to 17 chapters globally and launched our newest ERGs focused on employees with disabilities and allies. Unique to Illumina's ERG program is the inclusion of business impact and social impact project requirements which enable a deeper connection to business value and giving back to our communities.
This is another example of the intersection of our work in DEI with our ESG focus areas. DEI goes beyond our internal workforce, our people and culture. It underpins each of our ESG areas. Inclusion is core to our purpose. It is essential to the work that we do in access to genomics to the communities we serve with the focus on STEM for all, and it connects to environmental justice under sustainability. Inclusion is essential to the partners we choose like guiding our spin towards diverse suppliers and of course, the teams we build internally.
Investing and developing our people is the catalyst for how we achieve success as individuals, as teams and as an organization. Regardless of the work arrangements or location, opportunities exist for continuous learning and growth. We invest in our talent, offer quarterly promotion cycles and the opportunity for quarterly proactive career development and performance compensation for all employees.
This year, we had over 1,000 participants in strength-based training programs and 70% of our leaders attended at least one development program with an average satisfaction rate of over 85%. We reward our employees meaningfully using formal recognition like innovation awards, inventor awards and our values awards. Every day, our technology is being used to improve human health, enabling advancements that were not possible just a few years ago.
It seems only fitting that our employees access these new technologies to help better inform their healthcare decisions, like workplace genomics, reproductive health programs and cancer testing. We create a culture of care, offering a world-class portfolio of benefits and wellness programs, and we extend these benefits to employees, spouses, domestic partners and dependents. We will continue to attract and retain employees with clear connections to our purpose-driven strategy, diversity and inclusion as a brand promise and embedded across all functions of the business, meaningful, inclusive and equitable benefits.
I'm going to now turn it back to cover our last focus area, operate responsibly and to take us into the Q&A section of the program.
Sharon Vidal
Thank you, Lisa. Doing the right thing is core to who we are. It includes practicing strong corporate governance, maintaining a culture of compliance and acting with integrity. Our role as a genomics pioneer brings with it the responsibility to enable innovation for good, ensuring the technology we create and the data we collect are used safely, ethically and responsibly. As our business and the genomics industry continue to evolve, Illumina plays a critical role in setting high standards for ethical use of our technology as well as the security and privacy of data.
We are honored to have our work in this space recognized and will continue to push our ESG efforts forward. We're dedicated to making a positive impact on humanity, not just through our technology and solutions but through our actions. And as we look to the future of genomics, we aspire to be the best partner to our customers, the best environmental steward and the best corporate citizen we can possibly be. It's the right thing to do and it helps deliver on our commitments to you, our shareholders.
I'll now invite Salli back to kick off our Q&A section.
Salli Schwartz
Thank you for the overview team. I would now like to invite Joydeep Goswami, our Chief Financial Officer and Chief Strategy and Corporate Development Officer; Phil Febbo, our Chief Medical Officer; Lisa Toppin, our Global Head of DE&I, John Frank, our Chief Public Affairs Officer; and Sharon Vidal, our Head of CSR and ESG. We will get started with a few questions that came in through the registration platform in advance of today's event. [Operator Instructions].
Welcome panel. I'd like to direct the first question to Lisa. Lisa, let's talk about human capital. We received multiple questions about the macroeconomic trends, the reduction of workforce in November and the recent announcement of more reductions to meet improved margins. Can you comment on that and the impact to the culture and future workforce?
Lisa Toppin
It has been a challenging time, not just for Illumina, but for many businesses impacted by the economy, the war in Ukraine and other geopolitical trends. It is certainly never easy to say goodbye to employees, but we are committed to taking care of employees that we part ways with and support their transition. Despite these challenging times, employees remained focused on the important mission we have and continued to report high levels of engagement. In our last internal employees pulse survey, 95% of employees reported being proud to work for Illumina, and 81% trust and confidence index and 28% of new hires came from internal referrals.
We have also maintained a lower-than-industry voluntary turnover through these challenging times. In 2022, voluntary turnover was at 11%, down from 2021, which was at 12%. We were focusing efforts to prioritize work and maintain the strong, collaborative, innovative and inclusive culture we have grown.
Salli Schwartz
Sharon, you talked about the science-based target verification for emission reduction. Why did Illumina choose to pursue this approach?
Sharon Vidal
Well, not all net zero commitments or emission reduction efforts are the same. And as a science-based company, we wanted to ground our environmental targets in a science-based framework, and we wanted to have a plan that would take us from commitments into measurable action that support making changes in how we do business on an enterprise level. We chose to create a climate transition plan that's time bound with quantitative targets based on the best climate science recommendations available.
The other reason and almost as important as the actual plan was we are equally invested in the commitment to be transparent and to signal to all our stakeholders, where we started, where we plan to go, how we plan to get there and the challenges along the way. We saw the external approval of our climate transition plan as a way to demonstrate to external stakeholders a credible and accountable set of targets that help guide our company toward a 1.5-degree scenario.
Salli Schwartz
Joydeep, this might be a combo question for you and Sharon. How is the organization preparing for the pending SEC mandatory climate disclosure reporting and other global mandatory reporting requirements that are evolving? Sharon, maybe we would start with you.
Sharon Vidal
Sure. It is clear that investor and regulatory interest in ESG remains high. In the U.S., we still expect the SEC to publish their final rule on mandatory climate reporting this year. Similarly, disclosure regulations in the EU and UK have already evolved, and we're monitoring all of them in preparation. Many of these reporting requirements are based largely on the frameworks we already voluntarily disclosed like TCFD, GRI and SASB. We've been assuring our environmental and human capital data for the last few years to limited assurance levels. And as part of our continuous improvement, we are reviewing additional internal controls including elevating that level of assurance. Joydeep, I don't know if you want to add anything on?
Joydeep Goswami
Yes. Thanks, Sharon. Yes, I would just add that our finance teams and the internal audit team are already deeply engaged in partnership with the ESG team and any financial reporting that may occur will follow the same rigors as our existing finance structure.
Salli Schwartz
Lisa, with the no vote for say-on-pay that occurred at the shareholder meeting, as the team reviews potential changes to the executive compensation plan, are there plans on the governance side to explicitly connect ESG metrics with executive compensation?
Lisa Toppin
Currently, select ESG targets are included in annual corporate gold and influence executive compensations through the management performance scorecard. So we will continue to evaluate our options as our compensation programs evolve.
Salli Schwartz
All right. Joydeep, in your role as Chief Strategy and Corporate Development Officer, can you share a little about the role that acquisitions, collaborations and evidence generation is playing in the growth of the company, helping to expand access to genomics?
Joydeep Goswami
Sure. I think we can all agree that together, we can achieve more, and our role goes beyond just delivering sequencers and data. It includes delivering insights and accelerating the shift towards genomic sequencing as a standard of care to improve patient outcomes and drive down overall health costs.
In addition to our internal innovation engine, we leverage a variety of collaborations and partnerships to make this a reality. One example this year was the research test co-developed with Merck and Myriad Genomics [ph] to unlock deeper insights into the tumor genome. Another example is the collaboration with AstraZeneca using our genomics Insights platform to improve drug discovery.
Salli Schwartz
And Phil, along similar lines, your team supports a number of evidence generation projects to engage health systems globally and demonstrate clinical utility. What has been the impact?
Phil Febbo
Well, it's been tremendously impactful. We have over 263 studies and research collaborations across the globe that are active or in the pipeline and two Illumina papers were highlighted in the American Journal of Human Genetics Genomic Medicine Year and Review as part of the top 10 key advances in applying genomic information to clinical care reported in 2022. I think one of the best examples is associated with the project called Baby Bambi in Israel. Illumina supported a pilot program with Israel's Ministry of Health, led by the Genetics Institute of the Tel Aviv Sourasky Medical Center to implement the use of whole genome sequencing for rapid diagnosis in newborns in critical condition who are treated in NICUs.
Clinical results have been reported back with the diagnostic yield coming close to 50%. Based on the positive results of Baby Bambi, the Ministry of Health is expected to commission a decision for reimbursement for rapid whole-genome sequencing in the NICU in 2023, providing the creation of a national reimbursement for whole-genome sequencing as a diagnostic tool in hospitals across Israel.
Salli Schwartz
The utility at genomics is only as powerful as the useful results that are provided from sequencing and analysis. How's Illumina working with the global community to ensure diverse populations are represented in databases, leading to more accurate and valuable results for all ethnicities and people.
Phil Febbo
I talked a little bit about this in the access to genomics section and the scientific imperative to increase the diversity of genomic data. There are a lot of projects that span commercial, philanthropy, PopGen initiatives and collaborations. We will continue to seek opportunities to bring awareness on the importance of the topic and drive action.
Salli Schwartz
And Joydeep, how do you balance achieving short-term financial results with long-term ESG priorities?
Joydeep Goswami
We're very focused on delivering our financial results. We recently announced plans to achieve more than $100 million in annualized run rate cost savings to accelerate margin improvement and create flexibility for further investment in high-growth areas. We believe our commitment to higher margins will set us on the best path to deliver long-term sustainable success for our shareholders which includes our long-term ESG priorities.
Salli Schwartz
Sharon, there's some noise on ESG in the market. How does that impact Illumina and how it's approaching ESG?
Sharon Vidal
Well, at Illumina, we're focusing on the most material environmental, social and governance teams to our business and what's going to drive long-term shareholder value and impact. And that translates into planning to mitigate the potential for climate risk, it means investing in our human capital, ensuring cybersecurity and data privacy, it means driving innovation and coverage of genomics.
And while there may be noise in the market or even in politics, for us, regardless of what is being called, ESG is just mitigating business risk, taking care of our people and operating responsibly. We believe these themes are good for business and already embedded in our operations and we believe will drive shareholder value.
Salli Schwartz
Lisa, what's the strategy for talent acquisition in this competitive environment?
Lisa Toppin
In terms of recruiting as well as retention, we are finding that employees and potential employees at all stages of their careers are looking to work for purpose-driven companies and organizations that align with their own core values. Our diversity, equity and inclusion approach, our climate action, our cutting-edge innovation and our mission to improve human health. These are important elements that bring people to Illumina and why they stay. We will continue to monitor our culture and employee sentiment, especially during challenging times, so stay attuned to how best to support.
Salli Schwartz
And then John, the final two questions that have come in are directed to you. You’ve now have been in your role for little over a year as Chief Public Affairs Officer, what are some of the strategic priorities for the government affairs team?
John Frank
Our interactions with policymakers align with our core values, ethical responsibilities and legal obligations. We're focused on advocating for public policies that ensure and enable broad access to genomic technologies and responsible and accountable practices. Our main areas of focus include advancement of precision medicine, adoption and reimbursement for genetic testing, adoption and reimbursement for noninvasive prenatal testing and IPT, adoption and funding for genomic infectious disease surveillance and promoting STEM opportunities to ensure a great workforce and especially a diverse workforce we need for the future.
Salli Schwartz
And John, as a genomics pioneer, it brings with it the responsibility to enable innovation for good, ensuring that the technology we create and the data we collect are used safely, ethically and responsibly. Can you share a little bit about the ethical use of genomics, controls we have in place and any new programs?
John Frank
At Illumina, we are steadfast in our commitment that genomic technologies should be used to benefit humanity and we will only work with partners that further our mission. Our human rights policy and customer agreements outline our expectations regarding the ethical use of our technologies and the steps we can take in the event of a possible violation. We have oversight and accountability processes to monitor and force these commitments and seek to prevent sales that could result in misuse or human rights concerns before they happen.
We're committed to investigating potential reports of product misuse, and we will not hesitate to see sales to business partners in the event we confirm any ethics or human rights concern. For new achievements on the data privacy side, we received ISO certification for privacy information management for our six cloud-based products, providing our customers with assurance about our data privacy practices. And we completed our first human rights impact assessment this year, a summary of which is included in our CSR report, which is posted online.
Salli Schwartz
That wraps up the time we have for Q&A. If you did not have your questions answered, we are available for individual ESG discussions or e-mail follow-up through the IR team. To access the new CSR report or the appendix file, please see www.illumina.com/CSR or you can access the ESG tab from investor.illumina.com. We look forward to working toward a more equitable and sustainable future together, bringing long-term value to all of our shareholders and extended stakeholders. Thank you for joining us today.
Question-and-Answer Session
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Illumina, Inc. (ILMN) Special Call (2023 ESG Investor Event) Transcript