[e-drug] Accountability of the pharmaceutical industry

["Kirsten Myhr" <kirsten.myhr@relis.ulleval.no>]

E-drug: Accountability of the pharmaceutical industry
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[This is the fourth article in the series Medicines, Society, and Industry
Series. Abstract below. Copied as fair use. The full text should be
available free if you search the journal. KM]

Accountability of the pharmaceutical industry
M N Graham Dukes
Lancet 2002; 360: 1682-84 (23 November 2002)
http://www.thelancet.com/journal/vol360/iss9346/full/llan.360.9346.editorial_and_review.23261.1
(repair link)
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Institute of Pharmacotherapy, University of Oslo, Trosterudveien 19, 0778
Oslo, Norway (M N G Dukes MD) (e-mail:mngdukes@online.no)

To whom does the pharmaceutical industry owe a duty?
Priorities in research
Drug prices
Drug information and promotion
The need for a balance
Problems with surveillance
Governments and intergovernmental organisations
Approaches for today, and tomorrow
References

The pharmaceutical industry is accountable on the one hand to its
shareholders and on the other to the community at large. These two
obligations can, in principle, be met. However, the industry has developed
practices that do not consider society, including excessive or inappropriate
pricing of drugs, an indifference to the needs and limitations of the
developing world, an imbalance between true innovation and promotional
activity, interference with clinical investigations, and efforts to mould
medical thinking and priorities as a means to enlarge the market. In such
respects, the pharmaceutical industry must now be called to order. The
industry has shown itself to be sufficiently resilient to adapt to change if
society insists on it. However, to influence multinational corporations
effectively, the efforts of governments will have to be complemented by
others, notably the many voluntary organisations that have shown they can
effectively represent society's public-health interests.

Previous articles in this series have considered the broad role that the
pharmaceutical industry has in society. This industry is not merely a
provider of drugs, but is now a substantial purveyor of information and
persuasion. The cost of the drugs it supplies (and indirectly the cost of
its ancillary activities) weighs greatly on public and private purses. In
some countries, pharmaceutical companies are major employers, innovators,
science financiers, taxpayers, and earners of foreign exchange. In these
respects, the commercial interests of a pharmaceutical company could run
parallel to those of the community at large. Yet, these interests on
occasion diverge, and when they do a solution has to be found.
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Kirsten Myhr, MScPharm, MPH
Head, RELIS Ost Drug Information Centre
Ulleval University Hospital
0407 OSLO, Norway
Tel: +47 23 01 64 11  Fax: +47 23 01 64 10
kirsten.myhr@relis.ulleval.no (w)
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