Pharma CEO’s betray the public they serve

SUMMARY: Via STAT news “top pharmaceutical CEOs have targeted a small group of Republican senators with roughly $200,000 in campaign donations in the past year”. No matter what you read it’s about sales and Wall Street, not patients.

Milton Friedman is wrong and is out of date. When companies, like pharma, put profits ahead of patients people suffer and die. How can anyone feel that a company’s stock price is more important than people who need medication to stay alive?

Just when you think pharma CEO’s are willing to do something right you read “Robert Bradway of Amgen, has given $60,000 of his own money to candidates since the 2018 midterm elections 10 months ago. Ricks, the Eli Lilly CEO, directed $30,000 to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell alone — $20,200 to the senator’s campaign committees and $9,800 to the Kentucky Republican Party.” Frankly, I’m just at a loss to try and explain this.

I am a former Lilly employee and I remember a time when the patient was at the center of everything we did. Lilly has, however, shed older employees in favor of people who more likely to believe the propaganda spewed by phRMA. How can anyone working in the industry defend ANY payments to a Senator who has blocked so much legislation that the American people want?

I keep hoping that the industry will come to its senses and realize that a relationship with Wall Street is a dance with the devil but today’s pharma CEO’s only care about the balance sheet because the better it looks the more they make.

Very few trade publications are willing to address this dire situation. STAT News and Fierce Pharma are the only healthcare industry publications that are willing to call out the industry when warranted. Others are too busy sponsoring $495 a plate events t honor so-called “industry influencers”. It’s sad, really sad.

Originally published at https://worldofdtcmarketing.com on September 3, 2019.