Many major corporations in the U.S. and beyond, including some pharmas, have in recent months acquiesced to President Donald Trump’s crusade against diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives in various ways, including by rolling back DEI programs and quietly erasing diversity goals from corporate materials. Others, meanwhile, have instead doubled down on their commitments to diversity in clinical trials.
Amid their varying responses to the administration’s anti-DEI stance, most of the world’s biggest drugmakers are publicly celebrating diversity in at least one way this month, taking to social media to commemorate their employees and patients in the LGBTQ+ community in honor of June’s annual Pride Month.
A Fierce Pharma Marketing review of the LinkedIn and Instagram pages of the 20 largest pharmas found that, as of Thursday, with Pride Month nearing its end, the vast majority have acknowledged the celebration in some way.
Of the group, only Johnson & Johnson, Amgen and Boehringer Ingelheim have yet to post about Pride on social media this year; all three had commemorated the occasion by this time last year.
Though Roche’s corporate pages were also missing any acknowledgement of Pride 2025—despite rainbow-ifying its avatar in 2024—its subsidiary Genentech did kick off the month with a post honoring its gPRIDE employee resource group.
Almost half of the drugmakers did opt to add rainbow overlays or accents to their logos on social media this year, including Pfizer, Novartis, Eli Lilly, Sanofi, Takeda, Gilead Sciences, Bayer, Teva Pharmaceuticals and CSL.
Many took the celebrations offline, too: CSL posted a video of its headquarters lit up in rainbow colors, Gilead raised the Pride flag at several of its campuses, Teva shared several photos of employees enjoying Pride-themed gatherings around the world and AstraZeneca’s U.S. social media accounts showed employees attending Pride parades.
And Genentech wasn’t the only company to highlight its LGBTQ+ employee resource group. Novartis shared a video featuring members of its own group—writing in the caption, “Our employee-led LGBTQI+ communities are open to everyone, because true inclusion means showing up for each other, no matter who you are.” Both Bristol Myers Squibb and Novo Nordisk spotlighted panel discussions recently hosted by their respective LGBTQ+ groups: BMS’ on “the nuances of caring for aging LGBTQ+ patients” and Novo’s on “the healthcare experiences of trans and non-binary individuals.”
Novo also shared a pair of posts describing the athletic clubs formed within its Novo Pride group, one for runners and one for CrossFit enthusiasts, both aimed at creating inclusive spaces in sports.
Elsewhere, AbbVie posted a clip starring the leader of its PRIDE group in Japan, Sanofi shared quotes from members of the leadership team of its PRIDE Connect group and Takeda recognized the work of its Take Pride group.
Merck KGaA not only tapped colleagues from its Rainbow Network employee resource group to discuss what “inclusion, allyship, and authenticity” mean at the company, but also celebrated Pride Month with brightly colored T-shirts emblazoned with the slogan “Pride in Science.”
Several of the companies tied their Pride celebrations to their ongoing scientific work. Lilly highlighted a queer couple’s experiences with obstructive sleep apnea, and GSK posted a video honoring the community organizations that work with ViiV Healthcare, the HIV-focused company majority owned by GSK, to “help ensure that LGBTQ+ communities are seen, heard, and their health needs met—not just in June, but all year long.”
Merck re-upped a video in which Richard Liu, associate director of global marketing, discusses his longtime commitment to helping those with HIV; in the caption, the company asked viewers to join in celebrating Liu’s “strength and contributions to the LGBTQ+ community.”
Rounding out the commemorations is a new and ongoing social media series from Bayer in which various employees share their stories “as a powerful reminder of how being our true selves can also foster a culture of collaboration and innovation.” The first two videos in the series star Rob, who discusses how, before joining Bayer, he was afraid to let colleagues know he was gay, and Jin Thau, who talks about the importance of embracing diversity in the workplace and concludes by wishing viewers “a very happy Pride Month.”