Hearing that Marcia Angell is about to unleash yet another diatribe about how pharma influences the academic community (Boston Review article pending in May) ... hasn't this issue been overcome (or should that be overdone) already ... we have the Sunshine Act for example, public declarations of 'spend' on physicians and we have social media changing the direction in which industry interacts with stakeholders. How long will we continue to allow the industry to be labelled as the 'big bad wolf', shamelessly influencing easily-dupable physicians/academics/everyone including the dog?

Posted 28th April 2010, 07:52:35

EmmaDarcy said
How long will we continue to allow the industry to be labelled as the 'big bad wolf', shamelessly influencing easily-dupable physicians/academics/everyone including the dog?

Well, that's kind of up to pharma to do something about its own reputation. As long as there are cases where pharma is shown to be behaving badly, people will pick up on them. If we put our house in order, a better reputation will follow.

Posted 5th May 2010, 20:45:25

"Influence" can be positive or negative I suppose. But doesn't it take 2 to tango? The "influencer" and the "influenced"? If the outcome is negative then both parties share the responsibility.

It irks me that pharma is seen as some kind of negative influence when so much of the "influence" that pharma has is extremely beneficial for mankind. More so than most other industries.

As far as I am aware, pharma doesn't practice mass hypnotism upon its clients. The clients are intelligent, thinking, conscious human beings. I believe that everything in life is a choice - and it is wrong to blame others for making a wrong choice.

I have witnessed "rogue" behaviour amongst individuals during my time in pharma - but these incidents are rare - although they invariably make headlines.

I have never worked for any pharma organization that set out to "dupe" anyone. Whilst there is no denying that commercial success for pharma is necessary for survival in an extremely competitive world - that does not equate to malevolent intentions in order to gain that.

I'm very proud of the pharma industry and think it does a magnificent job of helping mankind.

Posted 5th May 2010, 21:33:24

At last ... someone 'in pharma" not readily willing to accept the role of pantomime villain ... righting a poor reputation requires activity not passivity ... I look forward to hearing more from you Pete and from equally courageous 'pharma folks'

Posted 12th May 2010, 09:21:57

It does seem to be "bash pharma" season again. I think people sometimes forget that for every drug where there has been some fine / breach of regulations, there are probably 1,000 or so where there has been no problem. I'd call that a pretty good hit rate.

Posted 18th August 2010, 19:15:36

If you look at the charities and how hard they push their messages, I think pharma is actually pretty mild by comparison. I'm not for a minute suggesting charity motivations are 'dirty' of course - they're just trying very hard to raise funds for good causes - but if you think about some of the tactics, in the context of a company making money, well they'd often be really quite dirty in that setting, wouldn't they?

Getting the message across that pharma generally has the mutually dependent aims of making money and helping people would help. We can't pretend to be charitable so we should be more honest, less dirty, and get more understanding and respect for making money, yes, but dong it for largely good reasons.

Posted 19th August 2010, 11:07:18

I think one of the problems that people have with pharma is not that it makes drugs that make people better (which is undeniably a good thing, if they actually do work), but the way in which it influences public opinion to change government policy and get policy makers in a headlock. For example, the use of charities and lobby groups by pharma companies can be kindly described as cynical and probably second only to the activities of the oil industry.

Of course, the press are complicit in this process, publishing pretty much any story that lands on their desk in a form that requires little editing, while occasionally biting back when it suits them.

Posted 23rd August 2010, 12:11:10

@liam3041 - it's a bit chicken and egg sometimes isn't it. Whilst I think the vast majority of charity and lobby group liaison is well intentioned it can be seen in a cynical light due to the general perception of the industry.

However, whilst it would be naive to assume that any big company cannot influence government in today's world, I'm not sure pharma would have the power to headlock policy makers to any great degree. If anything, the recent situation in the US with BP says to me that when push comes to shove, the governments still hold the final say.

So far as press reporting goes, well I'm all for responsible rather than sensationalist reporting!

;)

Posted 27th August 2010, 17:25:36

Well, I think the key phrase there, Paul, is when push comes to shove. A lot of the time, I there is unfair influence that goes under the radar, particularly in playing off NICE against the government via the pages of the press, for example.

And, on another, extremely theoretical (given the current state of things) point, why do drug companies need charity, especially, and lobby group liaison at all? Surely charities shouldn't be entirely or majority funded by drug companies. And lobby groups? What do they do. According to the Cambridge Dictionary, a lobbyist is "someone who tries to persuade a politician or official group to do something". Considering that we have select committees who gather evidence in order to present reports to Parliament and consultation processes to do the same for government when forming policy, why are lobbyists needed. Any arguments in the favour of charity liaison or lobbying are purely relative.

It strikes me, after reading the really interesting article by Trevor Brown and Stephen Allport (http://www.pharmapho...tfolio-optimisation/) on portfolio management that the reliance on influence may be a direct result of problems with pipeline and ROI and, once the industry moves into the next phase and settles down again, things may shift in another direction.

Posted 28th September 2010, 16:15:15

@liam3041 I think you misunderstand the point of a lobbyist. Governments are swayed from all kinds of directions and have to make decisions based on inputs from various different perspectives. Pharma lobbying merely serves to ensure their perspective is taken into account, alongside all the others.

You can argue over the level of influence pharma has versus other groups but governments aren't daft (well most aren't) and they can cut through all the information to generally work out the best way forward.

Posted 14th October 2010, 09:37:17

Governments aren't daft? Which economy have you been living in for the last two years!!!