Eli Lil­ly has been hit with an­oth­er age dis­crim­i­na­tion law­suit, this time by a se­nior sales rep­re­sen­ta­tive who claims she was passed over for a pro­mo­tion in fa­vor of a younger, less-qual­i­fied em­ploy­ee.

The case marks the lat­est in a string of age dis­crim­i­na­tion suits against phar­ma com­pa­nies, com­ing just a few months af­ter a sep­a­rate com­plaint was filed against Eli Lil­ly by the Equal Em­ploy­ment Op­por­tu­ni­ty Com­mis­sion (EEOC).

The EEOC al­leged that an Eli Lil­ly HR ex­ec an­nounced plans back in 2017 to cor­rect “the per­ceived prob­lem that Eli Lil­ly’s work­force on a na­tion­al lev­el was skewed to­ward the old­er gen­er­a­tions,” ac­cord­ing to court doc­u­ments. Fol­low­ing the an­nounce­ment, the EEOC said Lil­ly man­agers na­tion­wide changed their hir­ing prac­tices in fa­vor of younger can­di­dates for sales rep po­si­tions.

In this lat­est case, 53-year-old se­nior sales rep Mon­i­ca Richards claims she man­aged the com­pa­ny’s Boston Pri­ma­ry Care Dis­trict Team for 10 months on an in­ter­im ba­sis, and “main­tained its po­si­tion as the high­est per­form­ing team out of 93 teams across the coun­try.” How­ev­er, af­ter in­ter­view­ing for the per­ma­nent role, Richards said she was turned down in fa­vor of a 27-year-old staffer “with less than two and-a-half years’ worth of sales ex­pe­ri­ence.”

Richards has worked with the com­pa­ny since 2016, ac­cord­ing to the com­plaint.

“As de­scribed fur­ther be­low, Eli Lil­ly has dis­crim­i­nat­ed, and con­tin­ues to dis­crim­i­nate, against its old­er work­ers by sys­tem­at­i­cal­ly deny­ing them pro­mo­tions and giv­ing those pro­mo­tions to younger em­ploy­ees,” the doc­u­ments state.

Eli Lil­ly has de­nied the al­le­ga­tions, main­tain­ing in an email to End­points News that it “does not dis­crim­i­nate on the ba­sis of age, race, col­or, re­li­gion, gen­der, sex­u­al ori­en­ta­tion, gen­der iden­ti­ty, gen­der ex­pres­sion, na­tion­al ori­gin, pro­tect­ed vet­er­an sta­tus, dis­abil­i­ty or any oth­er legal­ly pro­tect­ed sta­tus.”

“We re­main com­mit­ted to fos­ter­ing and pro­mot­ing a cul­ture of di­ver­si­ty and re­spect,” the com­pa­ny said.

A sim­i­lar case was filed against Eli Lil­ly back in 2021 by two for­mer sales reps who ac­cused the com­pa­ny of age dis­crim­i­na­tion in its hir­ing process, with a pref­er­ence to­ward “at­tract­ing and re­tain­ing young work­ers.”

A hand­ful of phar­ma com­pa­nies have faced age dis­crim­i­na­tion suits in re­cent years, in­clud­ing Ab­b­Vie, which was slapped with a law­suit in De­cem­ber, and No­vo Nordisk, which is al­so fac­ing pres­sure from the EEOC. In that case, the EEOC filed a com­plaint in Sep­tem­ber seek­ing re­lief for an obe­si­ty care spe­cial­ist who was de­nied a lat­er­al trans­fer in 2018. No­vo filed a mo­tion to dis­miss the case that month.

Paul McKenzie took over as CEO of Australian pharma giant CSL this month, following in the footsteps of long-time CSL vet Paul Perreault.

With an eye on mRNA, and quickly commercializing its new, $3.5 million-per-shot gene therapy for hemophilia B, McKenzie and chief medical officer Bill Mezzanotte answered some questions from Endpoints News this afternoon about where McKenzie is going to take the company and what advances may be coming to market from CSL’s pipeline. Below is a lightly edited transcript.

Boehringer Ingelheim reported human pharma sales of €18.5 billion on Wednesday, led by type 2 diabetes and heart failure drug Jardiance and pulmonary fibrosis med Ofev. Jardiance sales reached €5.8 billion, growing 39% year over year, while Ofev took in €3.2 billion, notching its own 20.6% annual jump.

However, Boehringer is also looking ahead with its pipeline, estimating “In the next seven years the company expects about 20 regulatory approvals in human pharma.”

Microcap biotech Seelos Therapeutics is halting enrollment of its study in spinocerebellar ataxia type 3 (also known as Machado-Joseph disease) because of “financial considerations,” and in order to focus on other studies, the company said today, adding that the pause would be temporary.

The study will continue with the patients who have already enrolled, and the data from them will be used to decide whether to continue enrolling others in the future.

The FDA today approved Emergent BioSolutions’ Narcan brand naloxone nasal spray for over-the-counter sales. The nod was expected and comes on the heels of a unanimous 19-0 advisory committee vote in favor of approval last month.

The move to OTC means the opioid overdose reversal agent will now be available on grocery, convenience and gas stations shelves, as well as potentially for purchase online.