Our News
Diversity Equity & Inclusion at Alnylam: Building on the Momentum to Create Lasting Impact
April 26, 2021
Saraswathy (Sara) Nochur, Ph.D.
Chief Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Officer, Alnylam Pharmaceuticals
In January, I had the honor of taking on a position that is new to Alnylam: Chief of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DE&I). The role is new but the values and principles that gave rise to the job are not. They date back to the company’s earliest days – I know well, I have been with Alnylam for 15 years.
Respect for diversity, belief in equity, and desire for inclusion are part of our RNA. They are firmly rooted in Alnylam’s Core Values that include fostering an open culture and a commitment to our people. They have always guided our actions and interactions with our colleagues, communities, and patients, and flow through all levels of Alnylam. In recent years, Alnylam’s efforts in this area have become more deliberate and formalized within the company through initiatives and actions, internal and external, reflecting both larger societal trends and increased awareness among our employees at all levels.
My new position was initiated in part in 2017 when one intrepid Alnylam employee approached his manager asking that we participate in OUT BIO, the biotech industry’s largest LGBTQ professionals’ group. His request was wholeheartedly supported, I was appointed one of the Executive co-sponsors for Diversity and Inclusion, and before long we had a grass-roots team with varied members, and we launched our DE&I efforts in earnest. It starts at the top; our CEO John Maraganore is known industry-wide for his outspoken stance on issues from immigration to racial injustice, women’s rights and matters of social justice.
It is important that companies do not treat DE&I as a box to be checked; it is a dynamic, long and arduous process of growth and change that needs to be consistently nurtured for results to be sustained. I am committed to making sure our efforts at Alnylam will be meaningful and real, and will lead to successes we can be proud of.
This approach to DE&I illustrates Alnylam’s commitment to empowering people to innovate, whether it is in the creation of a new class of medicines or in taking the lead on issues that impact their daily lives. That first event in 2017, successful because of our bedrock belief in compassion, innovation, and inclusion, was the spark that set our teams to work on many initiatives beyond OUT BIO. Other efforts followed, launched by the DE&I Leadership team and other Alnylam employees and leaders, including:
- Training for Alnylam leaders and employees in unconscious bias and understanding race and ethnicity in the workplace
- The establishment of 3 Employee Resource Networks including Sexuality and Gender Alliance (SAGA),
- iTHRIVE for Women at Alnylam, and SHADES, Alnylam’s Multicultural Network
- Support of STEM education programs for underserved and minority communities
- Obtaining employee demographic data to the extent possible, with specific goals to increase hiring and retention of underrepresented minorities
- Development of opportunities to support patient advocacy groups
- Plans for increasing participation of minorities in clinical trials
My Story
I grew up in Mumbai, India. When I arrived in the U.S. to do my PhD at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the mid-1980s, I was struck by the lack of women mentors and women tenured professors, and the glaring absence of people of color in leadership positions within academia. A recent report from MIT estimated that there are 40 ‘missing’ biotech start-ups today that could have been founded by women had there not been inequities in funding practices based on gender! There is little doubt that the lack of diversity and equity has an impact on innovation, problem solving and organizational effectiveness. Interestingly, I have also observed that some of the women who had “made it” did not advocate for or support younger women who faced the same barriers they had. I made a mental note to not be like them.
My interest and engagement in these issues has continued over the years. I worked with women as part of the Healthcare Businesswomen’s Association mentors program, was an executive co-sponsor over the past three years of Alnylam’s Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion working group, and serve as an Advisory Member for Women in the Enterprise of Science and Technology (WEST).
It is important that companies do not treat DE&I as a box to be checked; it is a dynamic, long and arduous process of growth and change that needs to be consistently nurtured for results to be sustained. I am committed to making sure our efforts at Alnylam will be meaningful and real, and will lead to successes we can be proud of.
Measuring Our Actions Against Our Values
My new role marks a shift in our existing DE&I efforts that holds our organization to a higher standard when managing training and retention of staff, employee development, and workplace environmental policies. DE&I at Alnylam will also hold our actions accountable far beyond our office walls, as these values are woven deeply into the fabric of our legacy Patient Access Philosophy, and our Corporate Responsibility work.
We’re starting to make steady and incremental progress against our goals, and just earlier this year, Alnylam was selected to be included in Bloomberg's Gender-Equality Index (GEI) for 2021. According to Bloomberg, "the GEI tracks the performance of public companies committed to disclosing their efforts to support gender equality through policy development, representation and transparency.”
The principles that guide these external commitments to patients, partners, employees, communities, the planet, and science are now and will continue to be informed by our expanding culture of DE&I. What’s more, they serve as a yardstick for measuring the success of our DE&I values in practice, and help inform next steps.
I, a woman of color, was asked by our leadership to take on the challenge of measuring ourselves against our values to ensure a DE&I approach in our dealings with patients, employees, and communities. I’m proud to say, true to Alnylam’s motto: “Challenge Accepted!”
