The Ukraine-Russia war has brought devastating effect not only for the human life but also for the pharma & healthcare as industry as well. PharmaShots team was curious to understand about that how the overall world’s top pharma company are responding in this situation. 

We have observed whether big or small but a large number of pharma companies have immensely supported Ukraine during the time of crisis by providing humanitarian aids and support funds. Though, PharmaShots has analysed the Top 20 pharma companies which includes donations from big pharma’s like Roche, Pfizer, Novartis and many others 

• Roche established a support hotline for patients and healthcare professionals which has an all-time availability  
• Whereas, Novartis made a donation of $3M and also provided medicines to patients in need 

• Eli Lilly through its Lilly Foundation is donating a total of $500,000 to Direct Relief and Americares

Some of the big pharma companies have taken various severe decisions like, to halt the clinical trials in Ukraine and Russia, severing all ties with Russia among others. Few instances,  

• Pfizer halted its new clinical trials that are underway in Russia but offered the needed drugs to the patients who are currently enrolled in trials 
• Roche, which has nearly 33 trials underway in Ukraine, also had a stopped 
• Merck halted the enrolment of new patients in Russia and Ukraine which were among its active sites for the enrolment 
• AbbVie has temporarily suspended operations for all our aesthetics products in Russia 

The halt in the clinical trials in Ukraine are the underlying circumstances in the war like the unavailability of patients new and ongoing, difficulty in logistics, supply chain. On the other hand, Russian clinical trial sample transport system has been jammed by the US through various sanctions. There is a disruption in sending clinical trial samples from Russia to central laboratories in Europe or in the US as Russian flights have been banned.

PharmaShots has created a brief summary of what top 20 pharma companies are doing for the Ukraine-Russia war 

• @Roche is working diligently to support the people of Ukraine with medical products. It donated 150,000 packages of Rocephin, a critical antibiotic used to treat the symptoms of many kinds of bacterial infections. Roche is also working with external partners to facilitate transport into the country despite the current lack of humanitarian corridors into Ukraine. Roche’s primary focus is doing everything necessary to support the employees and their families in Ukraine. It is working through local distributors, using remote support systems for laboratories and working with partners in neighbouring countries to set-up blood donation programmes. And is also actively working on solutions to ensure continued access to treatment for Ukrainian patients in ongoing clinical trials, including for those who have left Ukraine and moved to other countries. 

• @Novo Nordisk is working with several international humanitarian organisations to provide relief and have donated medicines and supplies to the Ukrainian Ministry of Health. The Novo Nordisk Foundation has donated $8.15M to the efforts, including $740K to the UNHCR. It is also supplying essential medicines to patients living with chronic diseases in Ukraine and has donated up to two months' supply of life-saving medicine for diabetes and haemophilia from our current stock in Ukraine to the Ministry of Health. Apart from this, Novo Nordisk has established a hotline for patients and healthcare providers in Ukraine to inform about the availability of our products.  
• Gilead Sciences is working with urgency to mitigate any impact on the supply of the medicines to patients who depend on them. It is focused on the far-reaching impact on innocent people in the region. The Gilead Foundation donated $3M to support humanitarian efforts in Ukraine, with funds going to three organizations: USA for UNHCR, UNICEF USA IMC. This donation is in addition to the more than USD 300K already raised by Gilead employees, as part of our employee donation matching campaign for Ukraine.  
• Merck has delivered 135,000 courses of molnupiravir through a supply and purchase agreement with the government and donated 100,000 courses of molnupiravir to Direct Relief, an organization providing emergency medical assistance. It has also committed $1 million in support of aid organizations, including $300,000 to the American Red Cross, delivering urgent assistance.

Now, let us go through what Top level management of the pharma companies are saying about the ongoing crisis: 

• Bayer’s CEO, Werner Baumann said in one of his notes that how shaken and horrified he is due to the ongoing war. He said “We at Bayer stand united for freedom, democracy, the rule of law and the wellbeing of people. Two years ago, we stepped up in the fight against the pandemic to help communities around the globe. Now, as a result of the war in Ukraine, we are facing a potential food crisis in the developing world. And we do step up again!” 
• Amgen CEO Bob Bradway said that he is saddened about the situation as the company is actively monitoring the situation. He said “To assist the Ukrainian people, the Amgen Foundation has approved two disaster relief grants of $250,000 each to International Medical Corps and Project Hope. We have also opened the Amgen Foundation Disaster Relief Matching Gifts Program, allowing all staff globally to receive the Foundation match when they donate to select charities to support humanitarian efforts related to the conflict in Ukraine”  

Vas Narasimhan CEO of Novartis said that for the humanitarian response in Ukraine, Novartis is donating our entire inventory of essential medicines in the country, which includes antibiotics and painkillers patients desperately need. He said “Novartis experts are working diligently to ensure continued supply of medicines in Ukraine, where the health of patients who depend on these medicines is our priority”