A few weeks ago, an opinion piece was featured on the international public broadcaster Deutsche Welle’s website. In her article, the author shared the “unfair” standards by which pharmaceutical companies are frequently judged.
Love them or hate them, here are a couple of quotes from the article:
“Pharmaceutical companies don’t work like charities. They are corporations that exist to make money, and they have to keep doing it to stay afloat.”
“Clinical trials are laborious and expensive. Drug research and development comes with a high entrepreneurial risk.”
“This is not to say that pharma corporations are always in the right. I have often been baffled by their actions, for example when Novartis sued Indian companies that were producing cheap generic versions of the cancer drug Gleevec. Fortunately, Novartis lost that patent lawsuit.”
“Pharmaceutical companies are almost always stock corporations. They have to answer to their shareholders, which means that developing vaccines has to be profitable.”
If you’re very pro-pharma and believe our industry has taken an unfair beating as of late, I recommend reading the article. For critics of the pharmaceutical industry, I caution you – you won’t like it. But, if you’re like me and want to hear all sides of a story, check it out!
