All eyes are on Ab­b­Vie. The com­pa­ny’s round­ing out its first decade on Wall Street this year, and over the next five, it’s pre­dict­ed to beat out Pfiz­er to be­come the world’s top-sell­ing phar­ma gi­ant.

But it isn’t just about sales. More and more phar­ma com­pa­nies are pub­lish­ing re­ports to out­line cli­mate, so­ci­etal, and even pric­ing goals.  Last week, Ab­b­Vie laid out its strat­e­gy in its lat­est En­vi­ron­ment, So­cial & Gov­er­nance (ESG) re­port.

Amid a big sus­tain­abil­i­ty push in the phar­ma in­dus­try, Ab­b­Vie has been able to re­duce its car­bon emis­sions by 25% since 2015. By 2035, the com­pa­ny hopes to reach 50%.

“We rec­og­nize that our com­pa­ny and our in­dus­try hold a unique op­por­tu­ni­ty to make a re­al dif­fer­ence in peo­ple’s lives, but it’s not just the break­throughs we achieve that mat­ter, it’s al­so the paths we take to achieve them,” the re­port states.

In ad­di­tion to cut­ting down on car­bon emis­sions, Ab­b­Vie promised to source 100% of its en­er­gy from re­new­able sources by 2035, and send ze­ro waste to land­fills. In 2021, the com­pa­ny was able to di­vert 92% of its waste from land­fills and pur­chased 32% of its elec­tric­i­ty from re­new­able sources.

To achieve those goals, the phar­ma gi­ant has been in­tro­duc­ing more elec­tric and hy­brid ve­hi­cles to its fleet. In the UL, 95% of all new ve­hi­cles were hy­brid or elec­tric. The com­pa­ny al­so re­placed 30-year-old steam boil­ers at its Cam­po Verde, Italy man­u­fac­tur­ing site last year with ones that are much more ef­fi­cient.

Cli­mate goals are just one pil­lar of Ab­b­Vie’s ESG re­port. The com­pa­ny al­so com­mit­ted to di­ver­si­fy­ing its work­force and clin­i­cal tri­als, as in­dus­try-wide calls for tri­als to rep­re­sent the pop­u­la­tions they serve grow loud­er.

Of the 53 drugs ap­proved in 2020, Black pa­tients rep­re­sent­ed about 8% of par­tic­i­pants in the tri­als reg­u­la­tors based their de­ci­sions on. To put that in per­spec­tive, Black Amer­i­cans rep­re­sent about 13% of the US pop­u­la­tion and are more like­ly to die from cer­tain con­di­tions like heart dis­ease and most can­cers than white Amer­i­cans.

“To ef­fec­tive­ly serve the pop­u­la­tions liv­ing with the dis­eases that we study and for whom we cre­ate so­lu­tions, it is im­per­a­tive to de­sign in­clu­sive clin­i­cal re­search pro­grams with eq­ui­table ac­cess for pa­tients and physi­cians,” Ab­b­Vie’s re­port states.

In the last cou­ple of years, the phar­ma com­pa­ny says it has es­tab­lished a team to fos­ter a “da­ta-dri­ven” ap­proach to achiev­ing more in­clu­sive tri­als and hired its first di­rec­tor of clin­i­cal tri­al di­ver­si­ty and in­clu­sion to over­see the op­er­a­tion. The plan al­so in­volves mea­sures like se­lect­ing strate­gic tri­al sites and ex­pand­ing its in­ves­ti­ga­tor pool.

With­in the com­pa­ny, Ab­b­Vie not­ed that it’s com­mit­ted to pay eq­ui­ty, and con­ducts an­nu­al analy­ses to “en­sure pay is eq­ui­table across gen­ders and eth­nic­i­ties.”

“We al­so rec­og­nize that in­no­v­a­tive treat­ments can on­ly make a dif­fer­ence if pa­tients can ac­cess the med­i­cines that they and their providers choose,” the re­port states.

That’s where ac­ces­si­bil­i­ty ef­forts come in. In the US, Ab­b­Vie pro­vides co-pay as­sis­tance, re­gard­less of in­come, to all pa­tients with com­mer­cial in­sur­ance. Most el­i­gi­ble pa­tients pay $5-10 per month for their Ab­b­Vie med­i­cines, ac­cord­ing to the com­pa­ny.

Last week, Eval­u­ate Phar­ma pre­dict­ed that Ab­b­Vie will be­come the world’s top-sell­ing phar­ma com­pa­ny by 2028.

“As we ap­proach our 10-year an­niver­sary of be­ing an in­de­pen­dent com­pa­ny, we will con­tin­ue to in­no­vate with in­tegri­ty and in­ten­tion to ad­vance the long-term health of our pa­tients, our peo­ple and our plan­et,” the com­pa­ny said.

A California judge will allow a plaintiff in a state court case to introduce expert testimony connecting a potential carcinogen in former blockbuster medicine Zantac to cancer.

The order was handed down on Thursday from state judge Evelio Grillo, who is now allowing both parties to introduce expert testimony in an upcoming trial after what’s known as a Sargon hearing, where a judge determines the admissibility of expert witnesses and expert opinions.

Abbott is renewing its concussion awareness campaign, weeks after the company received FDA clearance for its lab-based traumatic brain injury (TBI) blood test.

The unbranded campaign features three generations of the Melon family — animated talking melons who slip on toys or take a spill while playing pickleball.

“Don’t mess with your melon. If you hit it, get it checked,” a narrator says.