Global Audit Insights: PSCI Audit Findings Analysis 2025
THE PSCI PRESENTS ITS ANNUAL PUBLIC AUDIT FINDINGS REPORT, PROVIDING CONTINUED INSIGHTS AND REVIEW OF SUPPLIER PRACTICES, REFLECTING THE COMMITMENT OF THE PSCI AND ITS MEMBERS TO A RESPONSIBLE, RESILIENT PHARMACEUTICAL AND HEALTHCARE SUPPLY CHAIN.
The PSCI’s audit findings are analyzed to identify trends, highlight improvements, and share recommendations. The analysis provides deep insight into supplier practices within the pharmaceutical and healthcare industry. In 2025, pharmaceutical and healthcare companies carried out thousands of supplier site audits, each typically representing two to four days of dedicated on-site work from both auditors and suppliers. Members of the PSCI collaborate by sharing these audits, with their suppliers’ permission, promoting greater transparency and creating efficiencies that benefit all parties involved.
In 2025, Members and suppliers uploaded a record number of over 240 audits to the PSCI platform, reflecting a significant collective effort. These audits generated more than 2,500 findings identified by auditors across the five PSCI Principles: Governance & Management Systems, Ethics, Human Rights, Environment, and Health & Safety. The analysis presented in this report offers a snapshot of suppliers’ real-world practices, highlighting recurring challenges and identifying areas where joint action can deliver the greatest impact.
The report is structured in three parts:
- A deep dive exploring the most common findings within each Principle, supported by qualitative examples from auditor observations.
- A regional analysis looking at patterns in China, India, the United States, Western Europe, and other regions.
- An insights section further interpreting findings from the perspectives of supplier categories, audit topic coverage, and onsite vs remote audits.
The report identifies several key trends across the PSCI Principles:
- Health & Safety remains the largest source of findings by volume, reflecting consistent auditor focus on this business-critical and potentially life-threatening topic.
- Environment findings nearly doubled, from 221 in 2024 to 435 in 2025, with Waste & Emissions as the largest sub-topic.
- Governance & Management Systems and Human Rights findings decreased, showing a slight shift of audit focus towards topics like hazardous waste handling and associated vendor qualification, as well as API discharge risk assessment.
- Relatively small number of Human Rights findings, especially for topics related to Wage, Benefits, & Working Hours, were recorded at a high severity level, which flags basic labor practices as an important management theme for suppliers.
Birgit Skuballa, Co-lead of the PSCI Audit Committee and Director of ESG Governance at Bayer reflected on this year’s findings.
“What stands out to me in this report is not only the scale of the effort behind these audits, but also the opportunity they create. Every finding tells us something important about where suppliers are making progress and where more support is needed. By sharing insights, identifying common challenges, and providing support through conferences, webinars, training materials, and practical tools, we can move beyond individual findings and drive broader, more consistent improvement across global pharmaceutical supply chains.”
The Audit Findings Analysis report demonstrates the PSCI Members’ shared goal to translate audit evidence into actionable insights. These insights prioritize the PSCI’s provision of supplier training topics, practical guidance, and collaboration with regional partners, ultimately supporting safer work, stronger rights, reduced environmental impact, and responsible business conduct across global supply chains.
For more details, access the full report in the resource attached.
- Audit Program