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Corporate Citizenship and Social Responsibility
Corporate social responsibility in an organization
Corporate social responsibility in an organization
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Merck Case Study Relevant Facts: Merck was one of the largest pharmaceutical companies in the world. Merck was about to lose patent protection of two of its best selling drugs, which had been a significant part of their $2 billion annual sales. Merck began putting millions of dollars into research (up to $1 billion) and within three years, Merck was able to discover four powerful medications. Profits weren’t all that Merck cared about; Merck’s founder believed that "medicine is for people. It is not for the profits." • He also believed that following the “medicine is for people” philosophy would lead to profits and had yet to fail.• River Blindness is caused by parasitic worms, which can be found in the Middle East, Africa and Latin America.• These places are developing, so many citizens are poor. • The worm larvae can enter the body through fly bites, with some people getting thousands a day. • Worms can cause grotesque growths, but the major problem lies in reproduction when millions of progeny are released in the system. •The resulting itching is so intense the infected have committed suicide. • Eventually, the larvae may cause blindness. • Two existing drugs could kill the parasite, but have serious, potentially fatal, side effects. • The only safe combative measure available was insecticides that eventually lose potency with immunity of the flies. • The average drug takes $200 million in research and 12 years time to produce. • In order for companies to stay in business (and ease human pain), they must make complex decisions about which drugs offer the most promise. • Investing time/money into drugs for rare diseases is risky (because the pool of recipients is small). • There are enough people with river blindness ... ... middle of paper ... ...f ivermectin in the first place. Furthermore, we wouldn’t want to risk Merck going out of business, as it seems they had the capability to produce many useful medications. They’d already proved to make six useful, safe, and powerful drugs—the medical world wouldn’t want to lose such able creators. The best choice, therefore, would have Merck contributing to the research, but include other pharmaceutical companies and private donors to help with the financial and personnel costs. This funding would allow Merck and the other companies to sell at low costs, or even give, the medication to those who desperately need it. In order to implement such this type of plan, Merck would have to take the lead. They would have to actively seek out organizations, companies and private donors and explain the wonderful consequences for huge populations with the success of ivermectin.
Confronted with two failed methodologies, Merck then falsified the test data to guarantee the results it desired. Having achieved the desired efficacy threshold, Merck submitted these fraudulent results to the FDA and European Medicines Agency. Merck attempted to cover up their fraudulent testing actions by destroying evidence of the falsified data and then lying to an FDA investigator. Merck also attempted to bribe the team on the MMRII testing process with financial incentives to cooperate and remain silent about the fraudulent activities and testing taking place. Merck went as far as to threaten Stephen Krahling with jail if he reported fraud to the FDA. Clearly, Merck’s purposes are corrupted and its actions of manipulating science distained its very mission of making the public healthier. Merck is doing the exact opposite of what its company’s objective is to do, it is putting young children and the public’s health at risk, all for the objective of continuous profit, reputation, power, influence, and maintaining its precious license to continue to distribute this vaccine. Thus, Merck’s actions and behaviors are unethical for defrauding the FDA and European Medicines
LEADERSHIP BRIEFING PAPER Leadership Briefing Paper After spending your entire working life in one giant corporation that went down overnight; investing most of your retirement in stock options that plummet to zero; you are suddenly jobless and your retirement money is gone. Yet, perhaps even more threatening; our skilled and managerial jobs are steadily going abroad, due to poor corporate ethics. The crisis of poor ethics has jeopardized public trust, caused an erosion of organizational cultures, created human suffering, caused unemployment, and profit losses. Poor ethics
Main Issue In 2000, Rich Kender, Vice President of Financial Evaluation and Analysis at Merck & Company was discussing the opportunity of investing in licensing, manufacturing and marketing of Davanrik, a drug originally developed to treat depression by LAB Pharmaceuticals. LAB proposed to sell the rights of all the future profits made from the successful launch of Davanrik at the cost of an initial fee, royalty payments and additional payments as the drug completed each stage of the approval process. Merck & Company's organizational goal is to constantly refresh its drug development portfolio and reach as many customers as possible during the patented period. So there was not only the potential of financial gain or quantitative aspect of the offer, but also the qualitative value which will be added by getting better positioning in the risky pharmaceutical industry.
In the business of drug production over the years, there have been astronomical gains in the technology of pharmaceutical drugs. More and more drugs are being made for diseases and viruses each day, and there are many more drugs still undergoing research and testing. These "miracle" drugs are expensive, however, and many Americans cannot afford these prices.
This fact validates the incentive pharmaceutical companies have to get a patent and acquire more power. Pfizer encourages R&D because of the incentives and a desire to obtain patents to receive more profit. Pfizer has to promote itself to be successful, creating a brand image that consumers will trust. If the company can advertise successfully, more consumers will purchase their products. Pfizer must also be generating products efficiently in order to save and use existing resources, while manufacturing their products at low costs to stay competitive....
Dr. Raku is aware of the concerns Ms. Pals has about chemotherapy, discovering that she is unaware of the risks this new treatment can pose to hair loss, Dr. Raku should not administer the chemotherapy. In order to respect the autonomy of the patient, Dr. Raku should inform Ms. Pals about the potential risk of hair loss and advise her to speak to her physician for more information and then see if she wants to continue treatment or if other alternative therapies should be sought out. Dr. Prichford has made it clear that he felt no need to tell Ms. Pals about the potential side effects, whoever it is unclear if Dr. Pritchford is aware of Ms. Pals’s concern about her job. Dr. Raku and Dr. Pritchford have the patient’s best interest in mind, but
It is the profits rather than the need of the world that drives the market, as Cahill points out. She laments that while in the 1960-1970 's theologic bioethicists influenced the field of bioethics, nowadays the ethical discourse involving Christian narrative gets" thinner and thinner," shifting away toward more secular and liberal views. As theologians are welcomed to partake in the ethical debates, their voices and opinions are rarely considered in policy making. Such situation causes the current trend amongst health care institutions,medical-surgical companies, and research labs, to focus on financial gain rather than ways to deliver health care to those who needed it the most. It is the consumers with the most "buying power" that have at their disposal the latest medical treatment, equipment, technologies, and medications while millions around the world lack the most basics of needs, such as clean water, food, shelter, education as well as the basic health care. Cahill fears that medical companies seeking profits will neglect or stop altogether to produce medications that are bringing low profits. Medications that are necessary to treat prevalent in the third- world countries or if you prefer the developing countries diseases, such as Dysentery, Cholera, Malaria, Rabies, Typhoid Fever, Yellow Fever, even warms, to name a
The pharmaceutical and biotech industries must be free to develop and research life saving medicines and other advancements that will benefit society. If this cannot be done, progress would never be made. People would still be contracting polio a...
It will allow more opportunities for the Merck & Co. to innovate from. Not all great ideas are being generated within Merck and this strategy will allow us access to those other great ideas. Open innovation will help Merck jump back in the lead of developing the larger number of new pharmaceutical drugs. They have already dipped their toe in with the “reverse-merger” with Schering-Plough which was great way to introduce the idea to the organization and culture within Merck. This course of action is the most ethical because it allows the company to maintain its core strategy of differentiation. It will also help continue the reputation of being innovative by supplying more ideas to work with within the R&D department. It will create more possible drug choices for consumers and profits for the company to enjoy, especially shareholders. An external idea could help produce the next Nobel Prize for the R&D
When a drug does make it to market and is successful, companies need to make up for the money spent in development as well as the cost of drugs which did not make it to market. After all investments are taken care of, there is still the need for profit. Some are concerned that if the United States government implements control over prescription drug costs, then private firms will be less motivated to invest in pharmaceutical development, fearing they will not make their investment back. This would supply pharmaceutical companies with less finances for the research and development process. According to the information collected by Abbott and Vernon, a drop in the price of pharmaceuticals would result in significant loss in investment in research and development (Abbott and Vernon).
In the following case, Luke is involved in a very perplexing conflict, or Ethical dilemma. This situation is an Ethical dilemma, and not just a regular “everyday” problem, because to Luke there might not be an obvious answer. He can also be thinking that both choices, keeping his commitments of confidentiality and telling his brother, Owen, are both correct things to do. If Luke tells his brother about the project, then he might concur with a theory known as Breach of confidentiality. “Breach of confidentiality occurs when someone gives away information that was supposed to be kept private.” (GENB4350 Online Lecture, Ethical Reasoning 1). By Luke breaching information that is supposed to be kept secret, he will betray the trust of his company
Physician-assisted suicide refers to the physician acting indirectly in the death of the patient -- providing the means for death. The ethics of PAS is a continually debated topic. The range of arguments in support and opposition of PAS are vast. Justice, compassion, the moral irrelevance of the difference between killing and letting die, individual liberty are many arguments for PAS. The distinction between killing and letting die, sanctity of life, "do no harm" principle of medicine, and the potential for abuse are some of the arguments in favor of making PAS illegal. However, self-determination, and ultimately respect for autonomy are relied on heavily as principle arguments in the PAS issue.
Since its humble beginning as a small drugstore, Merck has placed a large amount of importance on improving the health and well-being of its customers. As drug patents expire and genetic forms of their top products become available, Merck’s strategy is to do the unexpected; instead of raising the price of their older products in favor of patent protected new drugs, Merck focuses on reducing their cost in order to better compete with their generic counterparts. Additionally, Merck’s plan for growth now encompasses a much more aggressive pursuit of new drugs in their pipeline through extensive research. Merck became the second largest health care company in the world after the merger with Schering-Plough in 2009 and has contributed great discoveries like the first cervical cancer vaccine and great resources like the Merck Manuals which are utilized as a source of information to doctors, scientists and consumers worldwide .
The case under analysis, Eli Lilly & Company, will be covering the positives and negatives with regards to the business situation and strategy of Eli Lilly. One of the major pharmaceutical and health care companies in its industry, Lilly focused its efforts on the areas of "drug research, development, and marketed to the following areas: neuroscience, endocrinology, oncology, cardiovascular disease, and women's health." Having made a strong comeback in the 1990's due to its remarkably successful antidepressant Prozac, was now facing a potential loss in profits with its patent soon to expire. The problem was not only the soon to expire patent on Prozac, but the fact that Prozac accounted for as much as 30% of total revenue was the reality Eli Lilly now faced. (Pearce & Robinson, 34-1)
As for the developed countries, they can collect samples from the patients so that the drug companies can produce new vaccines for new diseases. When trying to cure diseases, developed countries and poor countries would have mutual benefits by cooperating.... ... middle of paper ... ...