Thoughts of Big Pharma

After the showing of the John Oliver clip and discussion in class, my opinion has skewed towards being more negative than positive. One of the most surprising aspects about learning about the pharmaceutical industry was how grossly uneven the distribution of investment that the pharmaceutical industries have, when it comes to investing in advertising, versus R & D. It is easy to forget that although there is an intent to synthesize treatments for disease states where cures and effective treatments are not available, pharmaceutical industries are still businesses. With the process of drug discovery and development taking an upwards of 15 years and billions of dollars at a time, with no clear chance of success at the end, it becomes a little clearer to see why advertising for the industries’  “successes” becomes important. However, I believe this distribution should be skewed inversely, where more investment is inputted towards R&D, not advertising.

The information that John Oliver presented that shocked me the most was to learn that majority of pharmaceutical drug representatives do not have a college degree in the biological sciences. To imagine such individuals influence how prescribers make their clinical decisions is not only unethical, but dangerous. With growing concerns of how individuals will be provided health insurance, this issue not only becomes clinical concern for the patient but a financial concern. Assuming that the medications that pharmaceutical industries push to use aren’t the most cost efficient, prescribing expensive medications when a much cheaper alternative is available can also drastically influence patient outcomes as well.

While I may seem to hold a negative opinion of the pharmaceutical industry, I wholly remain conflicted what I truly feel of the industry. Although we’ve learned much of the industry, whether it be bits and pieces in various coursework or having listen to whole lectures about the industry, I honestly still don’t feel I know enough about the pharmaceutical industry to pass final judgment. With numerous peers of mine bearing strong intent to enter into industry, I don’t believe it is fair of me, or to anyone in the profession of pharmacy to label the entire pharmaceutical as “evil.” However, I do believe that changes do need to be made with the best interests of the patients and whether or not the industry can sell their product for top dollar.