Pharma giants Novartis and Roche have abandoned their respective global diverse workforce targets. Novartis cited the changing legal and policy landscape across diversity in the U.S. as a factor in their decision. This comes after Pfizer updated their diversity page to reflect a more “merit” based approach and President Trump declared some DEI elements as illegal and issued threats to investigate companies with these policies. (Reuters) 

Optum Rx, UnitedHealth Group’s pharmacy benefit manager, said it would ease requirements for insurance authorization when renewing prescriptions on approximately 80 drugs. Over time, this would eliminate up to 25% of reauthorization requirements and accounts for more than 10% of all pharmacy authorizations. (U.S. News and World Report) 

Purdue Pharma’s newly filed bankruptcy plan will give creditors more than $7.4 billion in cash – including $7 billion in payments from the Sackler family – to compensate victims of the opioid crisis. This comes nine months after the Supreme Court struck down the company’s previous settlement plan. (Forbes) 

Pfizer received $3.3 billion through the sale of its remaining 7.3% stake in Haleon. The pharma giant offered approximately 618 million shares to investors. (Bloomberg) 

Gilead Sciences’ stock fell due in part to a report that the Trump administration wants to cut HIV-prevention funding. Plans could be announced as soon as this week, if the administration goes ahead. (Barron’s)

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