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The biggest pharmaceutical companies in the world have failed to cut ties with Russia even as multinational corporations in other sectors have halted operations there to protest the invasion of Ukraine.
Drug makers and manufacturers of medical devices claim they have an obligation to continue serving their Russia-based customers who rely on their products for life-saving needs.
Novartis, the Swiss-based multinational that employs 2,000 workers at its factory in St. Petersburg, told The Post there are no plans to shut it down or to stop selling vital medicines to ordinary Russians.
“Novartis has always been committed to providing access to medicines to people who need them, no matter where they are,” a company spokesperson told The Post.
That’s despite the fact that more than 330 businesses based in the US and Europe, where public opinion has turned sharply against Russia amid horrifying images of the crisis in Ukraine, have bowed to intense public pressure to cease their activities in the Russian market.
Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla told CBS News that the company will not make any further investments in Russia, but it will continue to sell its products there.
“How can you say I’m not going to send the cancer medicines to Russians because of what they did,” Bourla said.
Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, the Yale professor who compiled a list of multinational corporations that have both cut ties with Russia and also maintained their operations there, blasted pharmaceutical companies that did not pull up stakes.
“Russians are put in a tragic position of unearned suffering. If we continue to make life palatable for them, then we are continuing to support the regime,” Sonnenfeld told Kaiser Health News. “These drug companies will be seen as complicit with the most vicious operation on the planet.”
“Instead of protecting life, they are going to be seen as destroying life,” Sonnenfeld added. “The goal here is to show that [Russian President Vladimir] Putin is not in control of all sectors of the economy.”
The world’s largest automakers, tech giants, media companies, soft drink manufacturers, airlines and fast food chains have announced they will be significantly downgrading their business footprint in Russia in light of its military assault on Ukraine.
GlaxoSmithKline, the UK-based pharma giant, says that given its position as a “supplier of needed medicines, vaccines and everyday health products, we have a responsibility to do all we can to make them available” to the people of Russia.
“For this reason, we will continue to supply our products to the people of Russia, while we can.”
The firm released a statement saying it would halt all advertising in Russia and that it would shun any contracts that “directly support the Russian administration or military.”
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