World’s largest nursing union cuts ties with Israeli drugmaker Teva
The world's largest nursing union, the Royal College of Nursing (RCN), has cut ties with Israeli pharmaceutical giant Teva over its links to the country's military and a long record of corruption and bribery scandals.
Following the decision, the RCN removed Teva UK as a sponsor and partner of an upcoming event at the union's headquarters in London.
Pro-Palestine groups hailed the move as “a major breakthrough” for the international Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, which seeks to isolate Israel over the Gaza genocide and its apartheid policies in the occupied West Bank.
The RCN, which represents nearly 600,000 nurses, acted after Nurses for Palestine and UK Healthcare Petitions to Royal Colleges (UKHPRC) campaigned against the partnership.
In a public letter, nurses, midwives and healthcare professionals warned that Teva UK is “entangled with the Israeli military, part of the institutional apparatus of apartheid and responsible for corporate malfeasance”.
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The letter also criticised the RCN leadership’s invocation of “political neutrality” in response to previous attempts by members to “take a clear, principled stand on the ongoing genocide in Gaza”.
“Accepting commercial sponsorship from a corporate titan deeply woven into the Israeli state’s military apparatus, and its wartime mobilisation, is the very antithesis of neutrality,” the signatories wrote.
RCN council chair Carmel O’Boyle confirmed the decision in a letter to Nurses for Palestine.
“Going forward [the] RCN is ending its commercial partnership with Teva UK. Teva UK will no longer be a sponsor of the RCNi nursing leadership summit: migraine and headache services event on 30 October 2026. The event will go ahead as planned,” she said, referring to the union’s publishing and education arm.
“We are taking this action because further due diligence showed that there are a number of Teva Pharmaceuticals’ operations, which have been the subject of legal sanction and public scrutiny, which are not in line with RCNi and RCN values.”
Nurses for Palestine welcomed the move, saying: “Teva has no place sponsoring professional bodies dedicated to healing, care and preserving human life.”
UKHPRC said: “It is unthinkable that in this day and age healthcare organisations continue to enter into commercial relationships with companies linked to sustaining state systems accused or found by international bodies to involve grave violations of international law, including crimes against humanity, apartheid and genocide.”
Teva, the world’s biggest manufacturer of generic drugs, said it was “disappointed” by the RCN’s decision and accused the union of allowing healthcare to become “politicised”.
Over the last decade, the European Commission and US authorities have ordered Teva to pay about £1 billion ($1.3bn) in fines for price-fixing, bribery and abusing its market position to the detriment of patients and health institutions.
The Israeli company also faces a fresh lawsuit in the US over an ongoing price‑fixing scandal.
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