Eli Lil­ly must ad­dress pro­pos­als re­quest­ing re­ports on its di­ver­si­ty, eq­ui­ty and in­clu­sion progress, and its abor­tion poli­cies, the SEC de­ter­mined last week.

The news comes af­ter Eli Lil­ly an­nounced sev­er­al months ago that the com­pa­ny would “be forced to plan for more em­ploy­ment growth out­side of our home state” due to In­di­ana’s abor­tion ban, “one of the most re­stric­tive an­ti-abor­tion laws in the Unit­ed States.”

The Na­tion­al Cen­ter for Pub­lic Pol­i­cy Re­search filed a pro­pos­al re­quest­ing a re­port de­tail­ing the “fore­see­able risks and costs to the Com­pa­ny caused by op­pos­ing or oth­er­wise al­ter­ing Com­pa­ny pol­i­cy in re­sponse to en­act­ed or pro­posed state poli­cies reg­u­lat­ing abor­tion, and de­tail­ing any strate­gies be­yond lit­i­ga­tion and le­gal com­pli­ance that the Com­pa­ny may de­ploy to min­i­mize or mit­i­gate these risks.”

How­ev­er, Eli Lil­ly wrote to the SEC in De­cem­ber to an­nounce its in­tent to omit the pro­pos­al from its proxy state­ment, ar­gu­ing that the pro­pos­al “does not raise sig­nif­i­cant so­cial pol­i­cy con­sid­er­a­tions that tran­scend or­di­nary busi­ness” and “at­tempts to mi­cro­man­age” the com­pa­ny.

The SEC dis­agreed on March 10, de­ter­min­ing that Lil­ly can’t omit the pro­pos­al or an­oth­er seek­ing a re­port on the com­pa­ny’s DE&I ef­forts. That pro­pos­al re­quests that Lil­ly “pro­vide trans­paren­cy on out­comes, us­ing quan­ti­ta­tive met­rics for hir­ing, re­ten­tion, and pro­mo­tion of em­ploy­ees, in­clud­ing da­ta by gen­der, race, and eth­nic­i­ty.”

Eli Lil­ly has long pledged its ded­i­ca­tion to ad­dress­ing sys­temic racism and health in­equity, and in 2020 CEO Dave Ricks set a goal to in­crease African Amer­i­can rep­re­sen­ta­tion in its US work­force to 13%.

“This won’t hap­pen overnight, but we have the strate­gies in place – and are ac­cel­er­at­ing progress – to get there,” he wrote in an an­nounce­ment. “By us­ing our col­lec­tive voice and in­flu­ence, we can be part of the so­lu­tion — and help cre­ate the change we want to see with­in our own or­ga­ni­za­tions and with­in our com­mu­ni­ties.”

Eli Lil­ly de­clined to com­ment on Thurs­day.

The mRNA player Moderna is further cementing its presence on the African continent.

Moderna announced on Thursday that it has finalized an agreement with Kenya’s government to partner up and bring an mRNA manufacturing facility to the east African nation. The new facility aims to manufacture up to 500 million doses of vaccines annually. Moderna also said the new facility will have the ability to spike its production capabilities to respond to public health emergencies on the continent or globally.

A Massachusetts federal judge on Wednesday dismissed a class action lawsuit filed by investors against Biogen and several of its current and former executives over the company’s failed Alzheimer’s drug, Aduhelm (aducanumab).

The investors argued that Biogen’s contact with the FDA was unlawful and that the company made 25 false and misleading statements, including statements about the rollout and price of the drug.

The EMA released updated recommendations today for the use of JAK inhibitors (JAKi) after reviewing data from several clinical trials that showed increased incidents of issues in certain patients who have rheumatoid arthritis and other risk factors.

The EMA noted malignancy, major adverse cardiovascular events (MACE), serious infections, venous thromboembolism (VTE) and mortality in some patients.

Thermo Fisher Scientific is putting down more roots in the Bay Area.

The manufacturer opened the doors to a new cell therapy manufacturing facility next to the University of California-San Francisco Medical Center’s Mission Bay campus and on the university’s campus.

UCSF and Thermo Fisher have had a partnership since 2021, with the new site focusing on manufacturing cell therapeutics for certain cancers, including glioblastoma and multiple myeloma. The new site plans to use Thermo Fisher’s expertise in manufacturing services to help UCSF accelerate the development of cell therapies and eventually get them into the clinic, said Dan Herring, the general manager of cell therapy services at Thermo Fisher, in an interview with Endpoints News.

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.