Martin Shkreli Essay On Globalization And Health

Lobbyist interference from multi-million dollar pharmaceutical companies has heavily influenced Washington lawmakers’ policymaking. These pharmaceutical companies have their hand in much of the United States lawmaking practice. These powerful corporations stand to make a lot of money from the sale of drug testing supplies and services to the U.S. government. Macdonald reports:

The pharmaceutical industry is one of the most powerful and greedy industries in our country, with a goal to make as large a profit as possible, at the expense of the sick.

Prescription drug prices are on the rise in the United States. Currently, the United States does not implement a price control on prescription drugs. Every day the supply and demand for prescription drugs fluctuates. Pharmaceutical companies produce drugs that are necessary for survival. Therefore, it is necessary for research and development to continue in the United States. Those suffering the effects of exorbitant prices must do so until a generic form of a prescription drug is produced. Once approved by the FDA, new drugs will make their appearance on the market and patients will no longer suffer financially. Until then, it is necessary for pharmaceutical companies to price their drugs based on the idea of supply and demand. This produces the profit used to fund research. Price controls discourage innovation. If a price control were set in place, of course the price of prescription drugs would decrease. However, the development of new drugs decreases with it. Today’s generation would benefit from lower prices, while future generations would suffer from the loss of drug innovation.

The Pharmaceutical industry spends about $100 million dollars a year to protect its profits through campaign contributions and lobbying expenses (Singer, 2007). These lobbyists outnumber congressmen two to one (Singer, 2007).

Martin Shkreli, CEO of Turing Pharmaceuticals, made a decsion in 2015 that many indiviudals would call unethical. In September 2015, Shrkrali received a wave of criticism when Turing Pharmaceuticals obtained a manufacturing license for the Daraprim, which can be used to treat Malaria. The ethical issue arose when Turing Pharmaceuticals rose the pice from $13.50 to a whopiing $750 per pill, which resulted Shkreli being reffered as the "most hated man in America". The raise in the pricing of the drug benefited all stakeholder such as Retrophin, becuase Daraprim has no alternatives so it had an inelastic demand. Shrkali defend is decison to raise the price of Darphrm said that is was a great business decison and that he had every right to do so

The drug industry has severely attacked government, feeling that they are too restricted and that government has no right to

“A year ago we said that we need to introduce prescriptions these tablets don't cost much but the profit margins are high. Some pharmacies make up to 25 per cent of their profits from the sale of these tablets. It's not in the interests of pharmaceutical companies or pharmacies themselves to stop this, so the government needs to use its power to regulate their sale.”

The Pharmaceutical industry has been in the spotlight for decades due to the fact that they have a reputation for being unethical in its marketing strategies. In The Washington Post Shannon Brownlee (2008) states, “We try never to forget that medicine is for the people. It is not for the profits. The profits follow.” This honorable statement is completely lost in today’s world of pharmaceutical marketing tactics. These tactics are often deceptive and biased. Big Pharma consistently forgets their moral purpose and focuses primarily on the almighty dollar. Big Pharma is working on restoring their reputation by reforming their ethical code of conduct.

The bargaining power of prescription drug manufacturers is high because of the fact that only one drug

This case study focuses Burroughs Wellcome and their drug Retrovir. Retrovir is a drug that treats AIDS and AID-related complications. In 1987, Burroughs Wellcome obtained approval from the FDA to market azidothymidine (AZT), also known as Retrovir, as a treatment for AIDS. Retrovir was the only kind of drug on the market. Because of this, many critics accused Burroughs Wellcome of price-gouging, as the price of Retrovir was $188 for a hundred 100mg capsules sold to wholesalers. The president of Burroughs Wellcome, T.E Haigler, defended the high price, stating it was due to uncertainty in the market, the possibility of new drug therapies, and profit margins created by new drugs. Even though Retrovir’s price was dropped 20 percent in December 1987, and 20 percent more in September 1989, due to the House of Representatives launching an investigation, there was still pressure to lower the price. The big question faced in this case is what is Burroughs Wellcome’s next move regarding pricing?

The cost of new medical drugs seems to be accepted by many people who use them. These pharmaceutical companies increase their profits more and more each year because many people assume that it does cost a lot of money for research and development. Where in reality, they are only spending about 15% of their profit margins on research and development alone. A huge percentage of these drugs are actually tested in other countries where people are more willing to do trials with these drugs because they cannot afford them. Not only are there more people who are more willing to try them, but also there is less regulation and oversight when it comes to testing. Conducting these clinical trials overseas not only saves

The pharmacy business and healthcare in general is an immensely complex subject with profound ethical, economic and political intricacies and considerations. As discuss previously in this paper a lot of the issues with Shkreli arise from his own personality and a lack of moral turpi-tude. For the purpose of generating a reasonable solution we will put Shkreli’s personality aside and examine the specific strategy and conditions in the healthcare space that allowed Shkreli to single handedly raise the price of Daraprim by over 5000%. This section will examine the practice of trolling, a strategy used by Martin Shkreli and Turing pharmaceuticals to profit off the drug Daraprim despite adding nothing to the development or improvement of the drug.

The Big Pharma controversy is about the wide-scale marketing malpractices used by big pharmaceutical companies in America which resulted in a series of negative implications on consumers. It revolves around pharmaceutical companies, government regulators, health professionals (or “unprofessional”), market consumers and the medical watchdogs. The dispute was formed between the supporters of the marketing tactics used by pharmaceutical representatives and the detractors to it. Specifically it is the context that matters: Is it right, or rather ethical for the medical

It became crucial to study each transaction in order to connect the sources of the funds, as Shkreli was accused of medication price gouging, repeated losing investor’s money and falsifying report, and then illegally taking funds from other companies to pay off investors (U.S. Attorney’s office, 2015).

In fact the most important a role of the government plays in contemporary society is protecting people from unsafe products and environmental conditions (Government’s Obligation). The government created the Food and Drug Administration Agency in 1862 an its responsible for overseeing safety of food, drugs, and cosmetics sold in the United States. The problem is that pharmaceutical companies spend billions of dollars on special interest groups, super political action committee (PAC), and government officials so they will push their agenda and deceive the general public. These pharmaceutical companies are no longer interested in curing diseases but only treating the diseases. Billions of dollars are spend on creating drugs that are very simpler to other drugs already on the market. These drugs are called “me too” drugs and they do exactly the same as other drugs on the market used to treat the same disease. What these pharmaceutical companies are doing is reformulating the drugs modifying the molecule structure just a little bit so they can enjoy the intellectual property protection. This protection allows the pharmaceutical companies to enjoy all the earring solely of that drug for an immense amount of time. Instead of these pharmaceutical companies using the money to make new drugs or new technologies that fight different diseases they spend the money making the same drugs. From the mid 1970 through the mid