Pfiz­er is tak­ing a nov­el tac­tic in its ap­proach to the Russ­ian war against Ukraine as CEO Al­bert Bourla told staffers on Wednes­day that the com­pa­ny is putting its first $5 mil­lion in Russ­ian prof­its to­ward eight glob­al and lo­cal NGOs to sup­port hu­man­i­tar­i­an re­lief and re­sponse ef­forts in Ukraine.

“We will con­tin­ue to di­vert these prof­its to the Ukrain­ian peo­ple un­til peace is achieved. Un­til that time, we al­so stand firm in our de­ci­sion to cease all our clin­i­cal tri­als in Rus­sia and to halt all in­vest­ments in lo­cal man­u­fac­tur­ing,” Bourla wrote to col­leagues.

Pfiz­er joins with at least a half dozen oth­er Big Phar­ma com­pa­nies like Ab­b­Vie, No­var­tis and Eli Lil­ly in halt­ing tri­als or sus­pend­ing cer­tain busi­ness ac­tiv­i­ties in Rus­sia due to the war.

For Lil­ly, ef­forts in­clud­ed stop­ping the ex­port of non-es­sen­tial med­i­cines in­to Rus­sia. Those non-es­sen­tial med­i­cines would in­clude med­i­cines such as Cialis, a Lil­ly spokesper­son told End­points pre­vi­ous­ly.

No­var­tis, mean­while, told End­points that it’s tak­ing a two-fold re­sponse: an ini­tial $3 mil­lion do­na­tion to mul­ti­ple NGOs, and they “have de­cid­ed to sus­pend any in­vest­ments in Rus­sia and stop all com­mer­cial mar­ket­ing ac­tiv­i­ties, as well as all sci­en­tif­ic events, or­ga­nized by us or by ex­ter­nal par­ties.”

The com­pa­nies are all help­ing out on the hu­man­i­tar­i­an side of the con­flict too, as many must con­tin­ue to sup­ply life-sav­ing drugs to Rus­sia.

“I am proud that Pfiz­er chose to lead with a nov­el ap­proach in re­spond­ing to this cri­sis,” Bourla wrote, adding:

While many multi­na­tion­als have ex­it­ed Rus­sia com­plete­ly, we in the bio­phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal sec­tor have had a his­tor­i­cal ex­emp­tion from eco­nom­ic sanc­tions on a so-called “hu­man­i­tar­i­an” ba­sis, as we have an oblig­a­tion to de­liv­er our life­sav­ing med­i­cines and vac­cines to pa­tients re­gard­less of the cir­cum­stances. But rather than use this ex­cep­tion as an ex­cuse to do noth­ing more than busi­ness as usu­al, we found a way to con­tin­ue to serve pa­tients while al­so help­ing those whose lives have been torn apart by the war.

Two weeks ago, Biohaven hit an all-time high in weekly Nurtec prescriptions. CEO Vlad Coric attributes at least some of that success to a new interactive Twitter campaign that encourages patients to free their feed of potential migraine triggers.

Earlier this month, Biohaven in partnership with Twitter launched the #RelieveYourFeed campaign that allows users to customize their app settings based on their migraine triggers.

Over the past few months, oncologists have been talking a lot about the ASCO conference. Not surprising considering its import and the study data presented, but what may be less expected is the second most talked about topic of health equity.

That’s according to data from The Harris Poll and the new expert network the researcher is building out. While the company has been doing deep data dives into specific health issues or conditions for pharma clients, it’s now monitoring influencer networks of therapy area specialists to find out what experts are really thinking about.

Earlier this year, Novartis touted its radioligand as a major piece to counter competition in the cancer space. However, the physical production of its products has had anything but a smooth ride.

In May, Novartis had to suspend production of Lutathera and Pluvicto, its two primary radiotherapies. According to the company, this was done out of an abundance of caution as a result of potential quality issues identified in its manufacturing. The production suspension impacts the commercial and clinical trial supply of the products.

The rise of pharma environmental, social and governance (ESG) efforts in the past two years has been meteoric as investors turn their attention to sustainable funding. However, investors aren’t the only ones watching. Patients are beginning to tune into pharmas’ ESG promises too.

Patient advocacy groups familiar with ESG regard it as an important issue and want to be included in helping pharma companies set ESG policies and targets, according to a new report from PatientView. That’s quite different from what the investment community wants across a variety of Gartner’s defined financial, competitive, strategic and perception goals.