Social
The power of our people
Our commitment to advancing public health
At ICON, we recognise access to healthcare as a fundamental human right.
By working closely with clinical trial investigators and customers, we made tremendous strides in 2024 in improving patients’ lives while advancing UN SDG 3: Good health and wellbeing.
We continually embrace new ways to enhance processes, improve clinical trials, meet patient needs and accelerate the time from trial to drug development. Key to this work: AI. ICON recognises that AI-powered capabilities are essential to gather, normalise, analyse and harness the growing masses of data that fuel modern therapy development. Natural language processing, machine learning, robotic processing automation (RPA) are all integral elements to ICON’s enterprise clinical informatics systems. Our AI tools enable us to better manage documentation, compliance, data and resources.
Our comprehensive service offering defines and delivers patient-centric clinical research solutions. We focus on making it easier for patients to access clinical research, providing support throughout the patient journey:
- Patient insights: We start by understanding the patient’s experience with the disease
- Patient advocacy strategy: We work with advocacy groups to ensure that patient needs are considered
- Patient trial experience: We assess the impact of trial visits and seek to decentralise, including visits from our home nursing team
- Patient recruitment services: We develop communication and outreach strategies that are culturally and linguistically appropriate
- Patient concierge services: We provide empathetic support to help patients with travel, logistics, stipends, technology and other trial-related questions
Scientifically representative clinical research
Ensuring relevant representation in clinical trials is crucial to confirm that therapies and drugs are effective for the real-world populations that need them most.
Patient experiences are at the heart of this work at ICON. Our multifaceted approach strives to expand representation across the clinical trial ecosystem, from patients to trial investigators and community advocates. We begin with a comprehensive evaluation and action plan to address known barriers to participation, ensuring equitable access at each step in the clinical trial process. ICON’s PACE (Patient Access | Accelerating Clinical Efficacy Data & Efficiency) team brings this plan to life, collaborating across functions to achieve representative patient populations in clinical trials.
Our commitment to our employees
We owe our success to the thousands of devoted ICON employees who carry out our mission and endeavour to improve patient outcomes around the world. A corporate priority at ICON is to help employees at all levels enjoy lasting and rewarding careers at ICON. This includes building on the important progress we have made in recent years to create a workplace where all employees feel included and have a sense of belonging. More specifically, we set out to identify and address any potential barriers that may limit the growth potential of our talent.
ICON Cares: Fairness for all
As a global values-driven organisation, ICON celebrates all the differences and abilities among our teams. Respecting varied viewpoints and experiences is key to creating a foundation for flourishing interactions with our colleagues, customers, patients and suppliers to drive better patient outcomes.
Overall ICON is 71% female and 27% male. As of 31 December 2024, the representation broken down at the management levels was as follows:
-
46%
VP level and above -
60%
Directors and above -
66%
Managers and above
-
54%
VP level and above -
40%
Directors and above -
34%
Managers and above
*ICON provides gender-related data in compliance with regulatory requirements in certain jurisdictions.
Employee Inclusion & Belonging (I&B) communities
ICON has a number of employee communities where all employees are welcome to participate, share ideas, learn from each other and build stronger connections at ICON. The goal of these communities is to align activities, promote events and share information across their service lines, encouraging interaction between communities to recognise and celebrate intersectionality across ICON.
Promoting Inclusion and Belonging in Latin America: Pride in Mexico
With the support of our global I&B employee communities, local leadership and employees participated in Pride Connection Mexico. This event brought together more than 20 companies in Mexico to reaffirm their commitments to build a safe space and provide equal access to career opportunities and growth for the LGBTQ+ community. Our commitments were signed in the presence of a representative from the Council to Prevent and Eliminate Discrimination in Mexico City.
Our commitment to strengthening our communities
At ICON, our employees are driven to make a meaningful impact, both globally and in the communities where they live and work.
In 2024, we marked the second year of our Charity Matching program, which enabled ICON to support a range of charities worldwide, including those focused on patient care, homelessness, mental health and humanitarian aid. Through this initiative, we match a portion of an employee’s or team’s fundraising contributions to eligible charities, amplifying their impact. This program reflects our ongoing commitment to the UN SDGs and strengthens our culture of giving.
Supporting employee-nominated charities
We also continued our annual charity donation program, allowing employees worldwide to nominate charities that matter to them. Each year, we select 10 new organisations to receive a $10,000 donation each from ICON, ensuring that we extend our support to as many employee-nominated causes as possible. Since its inception, this program has benefited over 130 charities worldwide, focusing on health-related research, patient support, community well-being and initiatives that promote access and opportunity for all.
ICON Cycle Challenge
In July 2024, more than 125 ICON employees from 24 countries took part in the eighth annual ICON Cycle Challenge. This three-day adventure took riders of all levels through three countries, starting in Bratislava, Slovakia and ending in Budapest, Hungary.
Riders raised over €13,700 through JustGiving donations and the ICON Cares Charity Matching program. These funds were donated to the My Name’5 Doddie Foundation, whose mission is to find a cure for motor neuron disease by funding research to develop new treatments.
