Kristen Sukhdeo
10/15/18
Pharmaceutical Companies
Big Pharma.
These articles highlights the role and perspective of the Pharmaceutical Industry in
society. The main purpose of these companies is mainly to enhance the quality of life for people.
Whether this may be the treatment, cure or prevention of diseases, pharmaceutical companies
produce drugs according to the healthcare demands and convenience of the public. It is important
to note with the advancement of many biomedical fields comes the treatment of many diseases.
The growing aging population is a key demographic for many companies who seek to improve
their life quality and longetivity.
Pharmaceutical companies all go through the same processes for Research and
Development when making a new drug. There is a creation of the drug in a lab, then testing of it
on animals, then healthy people (to check for side effects) and finally testing it on a sample of
sick people in the attempt of curing or treating a disease. Once this is complete the dug may be
moved to marketing. Usually a patent for the new drug is filed and the company has to recoup
the money spent on R & D.
The next topic is the "challenges" Pharmaceutical companies tend to face. As mentioned
before when a drug is created the company files a patent, which gives them exclusive rights to
produce and sell the drug. However, patents have an expiration date of about twenty years, so the
main problem that pharma companies face is how to have their expenditure on R & D be
exceeded by their income in order to produce a profit in that twenty year timeline. Past that time.
and other companies will have the right to produce the drug in generic forms and introduce
competitive prices. Another challenge would be the regulations that are put into place that hinder
the profits of the company. I feel dirty just saying that. Regulations are advocated by certain
groups to ensure that the company does not hike up the price of drugs for rare diseases.
Now to the problems that pharma companies create. Some of the problems are created
when Pharma companies try to resolve the challenges and risks they face. Firstly, most of these
companies are in a capitalist economy, so their main motive is to produce a profit, which will
allow them to produce more drugs which will in turn make more profit. As stated, the pharma
companies spend a significant amount of money on R & D and therefore needs to appropriate the
prices for the drugs produced so they turn a profit. This causes a company to hike up lifesaving
drugs up to ten times the initial price, which is basically putting a price on someone's condition.
To counter regulations that are in place to check them, Pharmaceutical companies hire the same
people that work for the public departments that make the regulations, to infiltrate the structure
of the regulations department and find loopholes in the laws. This also works vice versa when