To: President of the Royal College of Psychiatrists

CC: Executive Team, Board of Trustees, and Council of the Royal College of Psychiatrists

Dear Professor Subodh Dave,

As psychiatrists, psychiatry trainees, mental health professionals, healthcare professionals, dedicated members of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, and members of the public, we write to express our profound concern regarding commercial partnerships accepted by the college. More specifically, we refer to Teva sponsorship disclosed during 2024 and 2025, its Gold exhibitor participation at the 2026 International Congress and the college’s public recognition of its exhibition stand in 2025.

Teva UK Limited is a wholly owned subsidiary of Israel-based Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd: a multinational pharmaceutical company entangled with the Israeli military, part of the institutional apparatus of apartheid and responsible for corporate malfeasance which we detail later in this letter.

We are deeply concerned about the collaboration with Teva, particularly for a college representing the mental health profession. Left unhindered, this would represent a catastrophic governance failure that would violate the core ethical foundations of our profession and cause serious reputational damage to the college.

Published pharmaceutical industry disclosures record £9,425 in Teva sponsorship to the college in 2024 and £11,562 in 2025, totalling £20,987. Teva was listed as a Gold exhibitor at the college’s 2026 International Congress.

Our letter outlines the fundamental reasons for the college to disengage from Teva immediately with evidence of Teva’s misconduct and the need for appropriate reparations.

1. Funding an illegal occupation in the context of apartheid, genocide and ethnic cleansing sits in direct contradiction with the college’s core values and principles

The college’s authority rests on its stated commitments to setting standards in psychiatry and mental healthcare, opposing discrimination and supporting patient care worldwide. Its commercial relationships must reflect the integrity and accountability it expects of its members. Its commercial partnerships should reflect those same principles. Psychiatrists recognise the lasting psychological harm of displacement, bereavement, detention, violence and destruction of healthcare.

On 8 September 2026, the UK government acknowledged ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in areas of the West Bank and the destruction of hospitals and clinics in Gaza. These statements add urgency to concerns healthcare professionals and international bodies have raised for years. The college cannot disregard these developments when assessing the ethical implications of its commercial partnerships.

It is shocking to see the college accept sponsorship and provide exhibition visibility to Teva while the company’s reported ties to Israel’s military mobilisation raise serious ethical concerns. The college cannot credibly claim that neutrality relieves it of responsibility for the commercial relationships it chooses to maintain.

2. Corporate complicity and the college’s duty of due diligence

On 23 September 2026, the Royal college of Nursing (RCN) announced that it was ending its commercial partnership with Teva UK Limited and removing the company as sponsor of the forthcoming RCNi Nursing Leadership Summit. Its letter states that further due diligence identified aspects of Teva Pharmaceuticals’ operations that had been subject to legal sanction and public scrutiny and were inconsistent with RCNi and RCN values. The RCN is also updating its commercial partnership policy.

Of note, a Teva-sponsored mental health symposium in south London was cancelled in autumn 2025 when local residents, service-users and NHS staff campaigned against the event.

The Royal college of Pharmacy has also ended its Teva sponsorship and exhibition arrangements. Taken together, these precedents give the college a compelling reason to examine its own Teva sponsorship and any other relevant financial ties.

Published disclosures record £20,987 in sponsorship in 2024–2025. Teva was a Gold exhibitor at the 2026 Congress. The college should disclose the contracts, payments, commercial benefits, approving bodies and due-diligence decisions underpinning these arrangements, including the criteria used to assess links to violations of Palestinian rights.

Teva’s activities and its position in the Palestinian pharmaceutical market under occupation have drawn grave concerns. More broadly, United Nations Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese’s 2025 report examines how corporate relationships can sustain Israel’s unlawful occupation and contribute to violations of international law and names several UK companies.

If the college proceeds with Teva sponsorship despite these documented concerns and the RCN’s and RCPharm's decision, it will be making a deliberate choice to lend Teva its professional standing and would not be able to dismiss that choice as a routine commercial transaction. The college would need to explain how it has assessed the risk that its endorsement will legitimise corporate activity linked to unlawful occupation and grave violations of international law.

The central question is not whether Teva is legally permitted to sponsor medical education. It is whether accepting and promoting that sponsorship conforms with the ethical responsibilities of a medical royal college. Medical ethics cannot be upheld in clinical practice while disregarded in institutional commercial decisions.

3. Reputational Damage to the Royal college of Psychiatrists

The college’s authority depends on psychiatrists, patients and the public trusting it to apply its professional values to its own decisions. The choice of sponsor for its International Congress is highly visible and will signal what the college considers acceptable in a commercial partner. If it proceeds despite the concerns set out in this letter, members may reasonably question whether sponsorship income has taken precedence over ethical judgement. That loss of confidence would extend beyond a single event and would weaken the college’s credibility when it speaks on professional standards, patient welfare and the protection of healthcare workers.

It should be emphasised that Teva's track record positions it as exceptional in the pharmaceutical industry - no other major pharmaceutical company has so closely allied itself to the actions of a state, with an open declaration of support for the Israeli Government after the start of Israel's assault on Gaza in 2023. Yet in 2025, the college awarded Teva its Best Free Build Stand award. How can a medical royal college claim to take its ethical commitments seriously while praising a company that has such a diametrically opposed ethical and legal record?

The concern is not simply whether Teva’s exhibition stand was attractive. It is whether the college’s public recognition helped enhance the company’s reputation, raising concerns over the potential for institutional awards to help paper over the more distasteful elements of a company's record.

4. Damage to public and professional trust

The college will be judged by the commercial relationships it chooses to maintain, not only by the sponsors of one Congress. An ongoing relationship with Teva would raise enduring questions among psychiatrists, patients and the public about whether the college applies its ethical standards when funding is at stake. Ending one sponsorship while retaining other financial ties would leave those questions unresolved. To protect confidence in its independence and professional judgement, the college should end its commercial partnerships with Teva and divest from any direct investments in the company.

There must be no Teva at the 2027 International Congress. We call for an unequivocal public commitment that Teva will not be accepted as a sponsor, exhibitor, commercial partner or provider of sponsored educational activities, nor receive promotional opportunities or institutional endorsements.

Background and supporting evidence

Since October 2023, healthcare in Gaza has suffered devastating destruction. United Nations bodies, the World Health Organization and international human rights monitors have documented:

• Over 1,700 healthcare workers killed, including nurses, doctors, paramedics, pharmacists and allied healthcare staff. This historical count and any daily average must be checked against an updated dated dataset.

• Hundreds of healthcare workers arbitrarily detained, abducted and subjected to torture in military detention centres, resulting in documented deaths in custody.

• Coordinated sieges, attacks, bombardments and the forced collapse of most hospitals and primary care clinics across the Gaza Strip.

The concerns about Teva are set out in reporting by Declassified UK, the OpenIntel Complicity Index, campaigns by healthcare workers in Spain, and a civil society petition to the UN Global Compact:

• Direct Military Provision and Equipment Donations: Following the declaration of a total siege on Gaza in October 2023, Teva themselves reported establishing logistical collection points across five Israeli sites, delivering roughly 1.5 tonnes of equipment to the Israeli military.

• Operational Military Integration: Reports cite Teva leadership confirming that between 10% and 20% of its domestic workforce were mobilised into the military. Hadar Mama, CEO of Teva’s domestic logistics subsidiary Salomon, Levin & Elstein (SLE), was reported to have commanded Israeli military operations inside Gaza while directing corporate logistics.

• Combat Troop Support Programmes: Teva has supported Israeli military battalions through the IDF Adopt-a-Battalion initiative, and finances mental-health and psychological-support programmes for combat forces, including Support the Soul (with Momentum) and Thank Israeli Soldiers.

• Self-Declared National Instrument: Teva leadership describes the company as “the national pharmaceutical and healthcare company of Israel”.

The petition calling for Teva’s removal from the UN Global Compact illustrates that concerns about its misconduct extend beyond military complicity to systemic anti-competitive practices, environmental offences and international bribery:

• Antitrust Violations and Record Penalties: In 2024, the European Commission imposed a €462.6 million fine on Teva for abusing its dominant market position, misusing divisional patent procedures and disseminating misleading information to delay the entry of a generic competitor to its multiple sclerosis medicine Copaxone.

• Foreign Bribery and Criminal Penalties: In 2016, Teva agreed to pay over $500 million in combined US resolutions concerning foreign bribery in Russia, Ukraine and Mexico; the US Department of Justice component was more than $283 million.

• Price Fixing and Collusion: In 2023, Teva entered into a deferred prosecution agreement with the US Department of Justice concerning price-fixing conspiracies on essential generic medicines, in addition to prior European pay-for-delay proceedings.

• Environmental Offences: Between 2007 and 2009, Teva was found to have violated multiple elements of the US federal Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act and the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act as well as multiple terms of Missouri state law due to its polluting of facilities in Missouri, USA resulting in a fine of $2.25 million USD. In addition, Teva was ordered by the US Environmental Protection Agency to take actions worth $2.5 million USD on improvements to its facility to prevent future violations.

• US Opioid Crisis: In 2022 Teva reached a $4.25 billion USD multi-state settlement for its role in the US opioid addiction epidemic, one of the biggest pharmaceutical settlements over the worst drug addiction crisis in world history. Later that year, another settlement was reached with the state of New York totalling more than $2 billion for Teva’s role in fuelling the opioid crisis. In response to the resolution, New York State Governor Kathy Hochul stated:

‘We are holding Teva Pharmaceuticals accountable for its role in the opioid crisis and the irreparable harm it has done to New Yorkers, their families, and their communities. This company misrepresented its products for decades, flooding the market with dangerous prescription drugs and endangering countless lives.’

Partnering with an entity bearing this track record directly compromises the college’s governance standards and degrades public trust in our profession.

Recommendations for Immediate Action

We urge the Royal College of Psychiatrists’ Board of Trustees and Executive Team to take the following actions as a matter of utmost priority:

Immediately end Teva sponsorship, exhibition, advertising and promotional arrangements across the college.

Disclose all current and historical financial and commercial ties with Teva, including the £20,987 disclosed for 2024–2025, the 2026 Gold exhibition agreement, sponsorship, advertising, procurement and direct investments. Disclose other investments or partnerships linked to Israel’s unlawful occupation.

Commission an urgent, independent investigation into the due diligence, governance and oversight that led to the Teva agreements and review all financial ties identified through disclosure.

Publish the investigation’s findings and the criteria used to assess these relationships, including links to violations of Palestinian rights and international law.

End all commercial relationships with Teva and prohibit new agreements across college-controlled entities, including binding exclusion from the 2027 International Congress.

Review and, where the rules permit, withdraw Teva’s 2025 exhibition award and introduce ethical eligibility criteria for future commercial recognition.

Co-produce a binding Ethical Sponsorship and Procurement Policy with members, setting clear exclusions for companies linked to military occupation, arms procurement networks or attacks on healthcare infrastructure, and apply it across investments and commercial partnerships.

We call upon the College to consider the aforementioned stipulations, investigative reporting and civil society research and the support Teva has provided for the Israeli military, both before and after 2023, despite the Israeli military's unequivocal links to every conceivable war crime. In these circumstances, giving Teva the visibility and credibility of the college’s Congress would be a profound betrayal of the professional values the college claims to uphold, and invites the question as to why the Royal College of Psychiatrists would even want to be associated with such a company, let alone having a commercial relationship with it.

Important ethical precedents have been set by our colleagues in the professions of nursing and pharmacy, and other medical royal colleges have taken steps towards disengagement. We consider the ethical commitments of psychiatrists to be no less important, and expect the College to take these as seriously as its membership and patients do.

We await your urgent response to these serious concerns and appreciate the time you give to these critical issues.

Your sincerely,

Signatories supporting this member-led call for ethical accountability

References

Curtis M. The Israeli firm aiding the NHS and IDF Declassified UK; 2025.

OpenIntel. Teva Pharmaceuticals.](https://openintel.uk/teva-pharmaceuticals/).) Updated 2026.

Stop Teva. Research.](https://stopteva.nl/research/).)

Global Health BDS for Palestine. Letter to UN Global Compact for removal of Teva Pharmaceuticals from list of participants Action Network.

Healthcare Workers 4 Palestine–Spain. Teva and the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) 2026.

Royal College of Nursing. Letter to Nurses 4 Palestine confirming the end of its commercial partnership with Teva UK 2026.

Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office. Foreign Secretary oral statement on Israel-Palestine 2026.

Albanese F. From economy of occupation to economy of genocide.](https://docs.un.org/A/HRC/59/23).) United Nations; 2025. Report A/HRC/59/23.

World Health Organization. Director-General’s remarks: Humanitarian access and health in Gaza—ministerial roundtable 24 September 2026.

OHCHR. Special Procedures communications: ISR 12/2025 and ISR 6/2025 2025.

Who Profits. Captive economy: the pharmaceutical industry and the Israeli occupation....](https://www.whoprofits.org/publications/report/61).) 2012.

European Commission. Commission fines Teva €462.6 million over misuse of the patent system and disparagement to delay rival multiple sclerosis medicine 2024.

US Department of Justice. Major generic drug companies to pay over quarter of a billion dollars to resolve price-fixing charges… 2023.

US Department of Justice. Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd. agrees to pay more than $283 million to resolve Foreign Corrupt Practices Act charges 2016.

Campbell D. Royal College of Nursing cuts ties with Israeli drug company The Guardian; 2 October 2026.

Campbell D. Second UK health body drops Israeli drug firm after activist pressure The Guardian; 9 October 2026.

UK Healthcare Petitions to Royal Colleges. UKHPRC calls on healthcare royal colleges to sever ties with Teva.](https://www.careinconflict.com/statements/).) Care in Conflict; 8 October 2026.

Royal College of Psychiatrists. Our mission statement

1Royal College of Psychiatrists. Our values and behaviours

Note to signatories: Under “Organisation”, please enter your professional membership body (e.g. RCPsych, RCN, BMA etc).