Mylan Ethics Essay

Mylan, “a global healthcare company” (“Company”, n.d.) has caused outrage over the price increase of the EpiPen product. Ethics plays a significant role in the decision-making of companies as unethical decisions may result in negative repercussions. Mylan’s unethical decision impacted various parties negatively. These parties are made up of Mylan’s stakeholders and have an adverse influence over the company in terms of sales and profit. It is thus important to uphold ethics, though it can be difficult as it is not finite.

The Mylan company has become one of the most prominent pharmaceutical companies with over 7,500 products offered in more than 165 countries and territories (“About Us”, n.d.) as a result of their foundation – a prominent

The stakeholders impacted include, “patients, customers… communities, vendors… and investors” (“Social Responsibility at Mylan”, n.d.). Mylan’s community, (patients, customers and vendors of EpiPen) were impacted negatively, as it restricted access to the life-saving drug as a direct result of cost. Rice (2017) suggests the community are deterred by the decision and instead sought out rival and generic products such as Impax’s Adrenaclick. Impax’s Adrenaclick for its affordability achieved great recognition as it retailed at $109.99 per two-pack with the option to lower it further to $10 via coupons (Mukherjee, 2017). Adrenaclick’s price disparity to EpiPen’ contributed to the growth of alternative and generic prescriptions which Rice (2017) claimed, doubled since the start of 2016. Regarding the community of Mylan, its “patients and providers” (Rice, 2017), sought out affordable alternatives to EpiPen because of the health risk generated by Mylan’s decision. Furthermore, creditors and investors were likewise impacted negatively. The price increase of EpiPen’s by 500% within a decade sparked outrage by the community which resulted in a poor reflection of Mylan’s image. In controversies such as these where investors are impacted as market share for the companies in bad light, drop. Cigna, a major insurance company for example dropped coverage of EpiPen for Adrenaclick (Mukherjee, 2017).

Regarding this case, Mylan’s decision would be deemed unethical as a result of the overall negative impacts towards stakeholders, in particular the patients. After attending the lectures and completing this assignment, I discovered that my view on business ethics is in line with the teleological ethics. Teleological ethics considers only the outcomes of the decisions in justifying whether it is ethical or not (He, 2017). With regards to the Mylan case, teleological ethics would also conclude that the EpiPen price increase decision was unethical as the impacts towards their stakeholders were negative. Hence, my view on business ethics is like that of