Of all the booming businesses in recent history the pharmaceutical industry makes the largest profits of any industry; making approximately three times more than the average fortune 500 company (Silverstein). At the forefront of the drug industries rise is the United States. The United States accounts for nearly half of the world’s pharmaceutical market, and the benefits are evident. The United States is seeing record high life expectancy along with an all time low death rate (“Life Expectancy at All Time High”). Countless lives have been bettered and saved because of the pharmaceutical industry and the medical advances made within. However, people must remember that the pharmaceutical industry is as much a business as anything. Like any business they are looking to profit and the best interest of the consumer is not always the top priority. Despite the opposition of eager clients, the pharmaceutical industry is in need of reform and more government regulation. Every year 100,000 Americans die from prescription drugs; not including accidents or wrongly prescribed drugs, all these deaths are the results of side effects from properly prescribed and taken drugs (Perdomo 1). That number hasn’t gone down over the last decade and won’t decrease until action is taken. Much of this is due to insufficient testing on drugs before being released. The testing process is too quick to discover many of the long term side effects that a drug may cause. Resulting in 250-300 drugs a year approved by the FDA being recalled (Greve). The standard procedure includes three phases of testing. However, not all drugs go through all phases of testing. If the early tests are successful the FDA often approves it prematurely. Also, if a drug is a minor altera... ... middle of paper ... ...testing of prescription drugs is more rigorous and in-depth, better prescription drugs will reach the market and the ones with devastating effects can be filtered out. If the clinical testing was done by non-profit organizations and the FDA more closely monitored the process, the corruption could be ended, ensuring that only safe drugs are approved. Some government enforced guidelines placed on drug companies will protect Americans from the schemes of the industry along with lowering prices; resulting in more affordable medication for the average citizen. More government control will also end the deceiving marketing tactics used by drug companies. The government involvement will take away the financial motives behind deceptive marketing. Making these changes will utilize all the good the pharmaceutical industry has to offer and eliminate many of the problems.
Abramsons points are well taken, and it truly is a shame that the medical industry has become a business. In my opinion, if the pharmaceutical industry was taken out of the hands of the capitalist marketplace and given the to the government, it would become less of a business. Prescription drugs are not ordinary consumer goods; they are products that can ultimately save lives. If a money-oriented company controls these products, it is inevitable selling the drug would become a greater priority than actually creating a beneficial drug. Which as a result, will to the creation many well-marketed yet ineffective
"In the past two decades or so, health care has been commercialized as never before, and professionalism in medicine seems to be giving way to entrepreneurialism," commented Arnold S. Relman, professor of medicine and social medicine at Harvard Medical School (Wekesser 66). This statement may have a great deal of bearing on reality. The tangled knot of insurers, physicians, drug companies, and hospitals that we call our health system are not as unselfish and focused on the patients' needs as people would like to think. Pharmaceutical companies are particularly ruthless, many of them spending millions of dollars per year to convince doctors to prescribe their drugs and to convince consumers that their specific brand of drug is needed in order to cure their ailments. For instance, they may present symptoms that are perfectly harmless, and lead potential citizens to believe that, because of these symptoms, they are "sick" and in need of medication. In some instances, the pharmaceutical industry in the United States misleads both the public and medical professionals by participating in acts of both deceptive marketing practices and bribery, and therefore does not act within the best interests of the consumers.
The United States of America accounts for only 5% of the world’s population, yet as a nation, we devour over 50% of the world’s pharmaceutical medication and around 80% of the world’s prescription narcotics (American Addict). The increasing demand for prescription medication in America has evoked a national health crisis in which the government and big business benefit at the expense of the American public.
As of 2011, Risk Minimization Action Plans (RiskMAPS) have been created to ensure risks of a drug never outweigh the benefits of that drug within the postmarketing period. This program requires that manufacturers design and implement periodic assessments of their programs' effectiveness. The Risk Minimization Action Plans are set in place depending on the overall level of risk a prescription drug is likely to pose to the
Government factors into the equation of the argument. Critics of the drug industry say that there is not enough regulation, while supporters of the pharmaceutical companies argue that there is too much regulation and that that is one...
An Analysis of GlaxoSmithKline The business that I have done research into is GlaxoSmithKline. This company is a globalised research-based pharmaceutical public limited company. Its ownership structure has changed a great deal since the original company was first established in 1715. Originally a pharmacy, the company has expanded, merged with and taken over other companies over the decades.
Threat of new entrants is relatively high. Companies forming alliances are potential rivals. Even if earlier such company was not considered to be a threat, after merging with some research and development company or forming alliance with another pharmaceutical company it would become a rival to Eli Lilly. The threat is however weakened by significant research and development costs necessary to successfully enter the business. Eli Lilly’s focus on a relatively narrow market of sedatives and antidepressants weakens the threat of new entrants, but other products that form lesser part of company’s sales such as insulin and others are exposed to high threat of new entrants. The need of obtaining certificates and licenses also weakens the threat of new entrants. Discussed above leads to the conclusion that threat of new entrants is medium.
The medical industry, with one of its sole purposes is to keep us safe and alive is killing America at an ever quickening speed. As a society we have discovered and created vaccinations, medical equipment, medications and treatments which are able to prevent diseases and save peoples’ lives from so many different dangerous situations under the sun. Recently the hand of greed has reared its ugly face in the form of drug companies like Mylan, the sole producer of the Epinephrine auto-injector, EpiPen.
This article deals with the politics and the various debates involved in the field of pharmaceutical industry in reference to the lifesaving medicines and treatments. It is hardly a contested fact that there is something wrong in the way the Food and Drugs Administration (FDA) and the pharmaceutical industry works; keeping in mind that the prime objective of both the institutions is a moral one, one that involves the lives of many, i.e. insuring proper health and access to life saving drugs. Let us now take a glimpse at the story of Ron Woodroof, also shown in the Oscar winning movie, Dallas Buyers’ Club (2013), to have a basic understanding of the topic.
Due to patents, Pfizer and other companies in the pharmaceutical industry are not always competing in a monopolist’s competition. When a business has a patent they are the only manufacturer who can produce the product until the product expires, so it is clear that the firm can act as a monopoly while in control of the patent. As a monopolistic company, the company has market power, giving it the capability to adjust the market price of a good. The main goal for a monopolist and business owner is to maximize their profits, however, there are rules they have to abide by. The monopolistic companies still have to keep up with the market demand curve. The point at which they decide to produce will rest on their own acidities of revenue, risk and effort. The company also needs to know the price elasticity of the curve: the greater the price elasticity, the more a company such as Pfizer will struggle to establish high prices and a high volume.
Wright, A., FebloWitz, J., Phansalkar, S., Liu, J., Wilcox, A., Keohane, C., … Bates, D. (2012). Preventability of adverse drug events involving multiple drugs using publicly available clinical decision support tools. American Journal of Health-System Pharmacy, 69, 221-227.
both the benefit and risk of all medication before approval.. In addition, FDA makes the labeling
Drugs will even become safer for those who are willing to use them. Government regulations on drug quality will make the drugs more pure, and potent, taking the harmful additives that some drug makers put in. Like cigarettes, warnings would probably be posted on drug packages stating “The use of crack may be harmful to your health.” As well as on windows of the stores that sells the drugs. An age limit to buy drugs would probably be 21. Clean, sterile needles would also be provided to heroin users and stop the spread of diseases such as AIDS from contaminated and dirty needles.
To begin with, drug companies are not helping people by providing a series of choices people can choose to get better health care services. One reason pricing goes up is because of fraud. People gaming the system or committing fraud are making the prices increase on a lot of known medications. People who game the system apply false prices on drugs which leads to the government paying companies. To stop this we need to have harsher penalties for people caught gaming the system. Pharmacy’s rising in price because of general and medical cost inflation. Private and public payers are calling for pricing to be lowered. Breakthroughs with medicine create economic and public health utility...
The high price of life saving drugs produced by the pharmaceutical industries demands your attention. This high price is being subsidized by hard working Americans. If you hear about the high cost of health care, it is not the cost of band aids and casts for broken bones. Some of these high costs are directed from the pharmacy.