Teva Pharma - Nationalise This Israeli Firm That Exploits Irish Workers

In March 2021 a photograph of the American singer Madonna appeared with a tub of “Sudocrem” visible in the background. A mini-frenzy ensued on Irish social media and one newspaper article gushed that Sudocrem was “as Irish as you can get”.

Except that Sudocrem hasn’t been an Irish product since the 1980s.

It is owned by an Israeli corporation, Teva Pharmaceuticals. Teva is a lynchpin economic asset and prestige brand for the apartheid regime, the genocidal Israeli state. And despite the fact that it employs 700 people in Waterford and Swords, it is no asset to our country. Why is that?

Five weeks after the Madonna product placement story appeared, Teva announced that they were closing down the manufacturing plant for Sudocrem in Baldoyle, Co Dublin, with the loss of 110 jobs.

This was not the first time that Teva had made Irish workers redundant. In 2017 they cut 38 jobs in Dundalk. In 2009, they cut 315 jobs in Waterford. Then, in 2018, Benjamin Netanhayu met with directors of Teva and directly encouraged them to fire Irish workers, rather than Israeli ones!

Teva is not a benevolent friend to its workers. It is the workers in Waterford and Swords who make it profitable. How much profit would Teva make if the workers went on strike tomorrow? Teva is a ruthless corporation whose only responsibility is to increase the profits of its shareholders.

In this, Teva is not unique.

It is one of many corporations operating within the western global capitalist system using Ireland as a low-tax base of operations. For them, the bottom line is all that matters. Since wages directly subtract from shareholders’ profits, if jobs have to be cut they will be cut.

That is what lay behind the move to Bulgaria in 2021: The senior director of corporate affairs for Teva UK and Ireland said that “the market is cut-throat and given the success of the Sudocrem brand, the company must make cost-based decisions for the future.”

The production of Sudocrem was then moved to Bulgaria, one of Teva’s thirty-three global bases; “cut throat” is precisely its modus operandi. Quite apart from Teva’s habit of firing staff ruthlessly, Donald Trump’s imposition of tariffs has undercut the 60% of sales they send to the US.

Back in 2012 the singer Cheryl Cole praised the effectiveness of Sudocrem in treating acne: “It really works” she said. However, it is the emollient properties of the Irish taxation system that brought and keep Teva in this country. Sudocrem would never have landed on Madonna’s bedroom shelves had it not been for the fact that successive Irish governments have given pharmaceutical companies like Teva a very easy ride over decades. However, Teva are taking the state for a ride.

The sale of drugs is hugely profitable. Teva had revenues of $16.5 bn and gross profits of $8.064 bn in 2024. In 2022, the Irish arm of the company (Norton CRO:100363) had shareholder funds of $1.51 billion including accumulated profits of $184 million. Teva is on record stating that sales by its Irish subsidiary account for 5% of its overall revenue.

Despite Teva’s eye-watering wealth, they pay almost no corporation tax in Ireland. In 2022, for example, revenue received the paltry sum of $8 million or, 0.043% of its accumulated profits. $8 million is nothing more than a rounding up adjustment to Teva; spare change down the back of the couch.

Moreover, in the same year, Teva claimed to have spent $42.42 million in Research and Development, net of R&D tax credit of 25% - meaning with that deduction alone they quite openly dodged more tax than they actually paid.

Teva’s other tax affairs are opaque. It is not clear whether they benefit from Intangible Assets credit, but as a peddler of generic drugs there does not seem to be any way they can set up transfer pricing payments for patents. Furthermore, given that Israel’s reputation is rightly in the gutter, it would be very hard to put any cash value on their branding.

From the outset, Teva has had state support - when they decided to expand their Waterford operation in 2008, they only did so with direct financial support from Irish taxpayers in the form of an Industrial Development Authority (IDA) grant.

Of course, Teva makes a big song and dance about the altruism of their sale of generic substitutions to the HSE. However, they are well paid for their drugs. A Parliamentary Question from Catherine Connolly TD revealed that the HSE spent €119 million on drugs bought from Teva in 2023.

Teva gets IDA Grants, R&D tax credits, guaranteed sales to the state, it makes an insulting corporation tax payment of $8 million. It simply beggars belief that a company like this pays so little tax. Even by the standards of tax haven Ireland Teva is an outlier.

Teva is the only winner in this relationship. In the public interest the revenue commissioners should audit and publicise Teva’s tax arrangements.

In reputational terms, hosting Teva is catastrophic for this country. They have been investigated and fined $425 million for kickbacks and $283 million for bribery of government officials by the US Department of Justice. These are criminal acts. They have incurred penalties of $6 billion in the US for price fixing and unapproved promotion of medical products.

In 2024, the EU fined Teva $503 million for abusing its market position and spreading misinformation. Look at these sums of money! Teva clearly has unimaginable wealth at its disposal. Remember, Teva paid $8 million in corporation tax in this country in 2022.

Worst of all for the reputation of Ireland is the fact that we are hosting a corporation that “pharma-washes” genocide.

Teva is the largest company on the Israeli stock market. It is protected and cherished as an important symbol of the supposed benevolence of the zionist state. Its privileged status can be seen in how it received substantial tax breaks from the Israeli state, paying no tax whatsoever in the decade prior to 2014. Between 2006 and 2018 it benefited from $4.2 bn in tax credits.

Indeed such is the prestige associated with Teva that Benjamin Netanyahu himself made a public statement 2017 asking them to minimise job cuts and “maintain the identity of Teva as an Israeli company". Netanyahu also gave an oration at the funeral of their celebrity CEO Eli Hurvitz: “I admired his wisdom and his achievements and loved his warm personality. There was no better ambassador for Israeli entrepreneurship and the Israeli spirit. I will miss him”.

Teva’s payments to the Israeli exchequer mean that they are direct funders of the genocidal apartheid regime. The corporation itself is unapologetic about this fact: “Teva is deeply committed to the State of Israel and the Israeli ecosystem and is proud of its contribution and role in the country’s economy”.

Teva has also been implicated in restricting the supply of medicines into Palestine.

Furthermore, there is a very real possibility that if the Irish state enacts the Occupied Territories Bill, Teva will up sticks and leave. As it stands, the Fianna Fail and Fine Gael government are ideologically fully behind the apartheid, genocidal state of Israel and Michael Martin is not likely to sanction his imperial ally.

However, even if the Occupied Territories Bill is not introduced, there is a real possibility that Teva’s relatively small operations in Ireland will be closed to secure a quick propaganda win for Netanyahu. Remember, he personally phoned Teva bosses calling for Irish workers to be fired!

SIPTU supports the Occupied Territories Bill and so it must be fully aware of these risks. Teva cannot be trusted. Trump has torpedoed their US exports. The OTB, or the threat of the OTB might push them out.

Unions and workers must engage with the relevant government departments and make provision to protect the jobs. Serious consideration needs to be given to taking the plant into public ownership.

This is no pie in the sky proposal. The banks were nationalised during the financial crisis. The health service was effectively nationalised during the Covid crisis. The Israeli genocide on Palestine is no less of a crisis.

Socialists want a state were all key industries are under the democratic control of our class, the working class. Then we couldn’t be held to ransom by genocide supporting companies.

Teva has lucrative contracts to supply generic drugs to the HSE - €119 million in 2023. It is in everyone’s interests to seek to take the operation into public ownership. Teva is no friend to Waterford or Swords and it is even less of a friend to Ireland.

Consumer boycotts have their limitations. Not least because the alternative big pharma companies are all, more or less, tax dodging, profit-driven monsters who only sell to lucrative Western markets and not to the impoverished global south where the most lethal diseases run wild.

Nonetheless, Teva has the blood of 60,000 Palestinians on its hands. Unless and until the state of Israel is sanctioned or the Teva plant is nationalised the products of this company should be ruthlessly boycotted:

• Consumers need to find an alternative to Sudocrem.
• Patients need to ask medical professionals to neither prescribe nor dispense Teva products.
• Doctors’ and pharmacists’ unions and organisations must support their members in this boycott.
• Pharmacists must not buy Teva products.

The workers of Teva in Swords and Palestine should know that you have incredible power. Organise now. Get in touch with SIPTU to demand their support in calling on the state to nationalise the company. Be aware, though, that your strength lies in your collective will to organise, regardless of any support you may get from SIPTU.

Your company is a prestige asset of the Israeli state. The Israeli state is a brutal apartheid regime, engaged in a 77-year project of settler colonialism and ethnic cleansing. It is committing genocide and Teva is “pharma washing” that genocide. You can take action against this. Palestine solidarity campaigners in Swords and Waterford are ready to advise and stand in solidarity with you.

This company is no friend of workers and they’ll stab you in the back unless you unite with all those fighting for social and economic justice here at home and abroad.