A second major British healthcare body has severed commercial ties with Israeli pharmaceutical giant Teva after pressure from pro-Palestine campaigners and an internal review of the company’s activities.
The Royal College of Pharmacy has ended Teva UK’s sponsorship and exhibition presence at its forthcoming annual conference, cancelling a commercial agreement worth around £15,000.
The college, which represents around 34,000 pharmacists, said a further due-diligence review had brought to its attention possible activities by Teva Pharmaceuticals which did not align with its values. It has not publicly specified which activities prompted the decision.
A spokesperson said:
“The Royal College of Pharmacy has decided to end Teva UK’s current sponsorship and exhibition presence for our forthcoming annual conference with immediate effect.”
They added:
“This follows a further due diligence review which has brought to our attention the possibility of certain Teva Pharmaceuticals activities which do not align with our values.”
The decision comes just one week after the Royal College of Nursing, representing more than 500,000 nursing staff, also ended its commercial relationship with Teva UK following a separate campaign by pro-Palestinian healthcare workers.
Teva was due to appear at four pharmacy events
Teva UK, the British arm of Israel-based Teva Pharmaceutical Industries, had been due to exhibit at four Royal College of Pharmacy events as part of the £15,000 arrangement.
The college said the decision followed a broader review of its policies after it became a registered charity in April. Its website describes the organisation as the professional leadership body for pharmacists and pharmaceutical scientists, with a mission focused on safe medicines, patient care and professional standards.
The move followed an open letter organised by UK Healthcare Petitions to Royal Colleges, or UKHPRC, alongside pharmacists and other healthcare professionals, calling on the college to end its relationship with Teva.
Campaigners argued that healthcare bodies should apply the same ethical scrutiny to commercial relationships involving Israel that they applied to Russian-linked investments after Vladimir Putin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Their letter called for the college to terminate Teva’s sponsorship, publish the findings of its due-diligence review and develop a binding ethical sponsorship and procurement policy.
It also urged the organisation to exclude companies which campaigners believe are linked to military occupation, arms procurement networks or attacks on healthcare infrastructure. Those are the campaigners’ allegations and framing, rather than findings made by the Royal College itself.
Nursing body cut ties with Teva last week
The Royal College of Pharmacy is now the second significant healthcare organisation to act within days.
Last week, the Royal College of Nursing terminated its own relationship with Teva UK and removed the company as a sponsor of an event on headache and migraine care. The RCN’s decision came after campaigning by Nurses for Palestine and UKHPRC.
At the time, campaigners immediately identified the Royal College of Pharmacy as their next target.
That campaign has now succeeded.
UKHPRC welcomed both decisions and said:
“We hope this reflects the ethical concerns that the public expects from healthcare professionals.”
Dr Barrak Almoosawi, an NHS doctor involved in the campaign, said the implications should extend beyond professional bodies.
He said:
“These victories should reverberate beyond the royal colleges, into NHS boardrooms and pharmacy purchasing decisions.”
He added:
“Nursing and pharmacy have acted; those still taking Teva’s money can no longer shelter behind the excuse that nothing can be done.”
Campaigners are now encouraging other medical royal colleges which have had commercial relationships with Teva to reconsider them, including organisations representing GPs, psychiatrists and hospital doctors.
Teva says healthcare is being politicised
Teva has rejected the criticism and expressed disappointment at the Royal College of Pharmacy’s decision.
The company said:
“We are disappointed by the Royal College of Pharmacy’s decision, and firmly believe healthcare is at its best when it remains focused on patients rather than being politicised.”
It said it would continue to focus on providing medicines and stressed that it operates in accordance with international and domestic law.
Teva also said:
“Teva does not make donations to political parties, political organisations, or military entities in any country.”
The company says its medicines are used by more than 150 million patients around the world each day.
Teva specialises heavily in generic medicines and is a major supplier to healthcare systems internationally, including the NHS.
That makes the dispute more complicated than a straightforward consumer boycott. Teva products form part of medicine supply chains used by patients across Britain, while the current decisions concern sponsorship and commercial partnerships rather than healthcare organisations refusing to supply patients with Teva medicines.
Campaigners have also raised Teva’s corporate record
The pressure on Teva has not been based solely on its status as an Israeli company.
Campaigners have repeatedly pointed to the pharmaceutical giant’s history of regulatory and legal penalties.
In 2024, the European Commission fined Teva €462.6 million after concluding that it had abused its dominant position to delay competition to Copaxone, its multiple sclerosis medicine. The Commission said the company misused the patent system and systematically spread misleading information about a competing product.
In 2023, Teva agreed to pay $225 million in the United States as part of a resolution of criminal price-fixing charges involving generic drugs.
Seven years earlier, in 2016, Teva agreed to pay $519 million to settle US civil and criminal cases involving allegations that subsidiaries had bribed government officials in Russia, Ukraine and Mexico.
Those cases are separate from the Israel-Palestine conflict, but they have featured prominently in campaigners’ arguments that healthcare organisations should carry out stricter due diligence before accepting Teva sponsorship.
The campaign is getting bigger
The sequence of events is significant because healthcare organisations have historically relied on sponsorship from pharmaceutical firms for conferences, professional education and other events.
Campaigners are now challenging whether that commercial model should include companies whose wider activities they believe conflict with the ethical standards of the medical professions.
The Royal College of Pharmacy has not said that it is joining the wider Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement against Israel, nor has it announced a blanket ban on Israeli companies. Its public explanation is narrower: a due-diligence review identified concerns relating to Teva which it believed did not align with its values.
That distinction matters.
The Royal College of Nursing and Royal College of Pharmacy have both ended relationships with the same Israeli company after activist pressure, but neither decision amounts to a general boycott of Israeli medicine or Israeli businesses.
Campaigners nevertheless see the decisions as proof that coordinated pressure can change the commercial policies of major British healthcare institutions.
With two organisations now having dropped Teva in the space of a week, attention is already turning to which health body might be next.
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