Drug companies `do care' about ethical issues

A robust defence of the ethical stance taken by the pharmaceutical industry in the face of increasing public pressure was mounted by Sir Richard Sykes, Chairman of Glaxo Wellcome PLC (pictured left), in the annual Radcliffe Lecture, hosted by Green College on 3 November. His lecture, entitled `Medicine, morals and money: the high ground and the bottom line', focused on the need to strike a balance between the business of drug development, testing, and distribution, with ethical questions about how tests are performed, when treatment is given and withheld, and the availability and costs of developed drugs. Sir Richard spoke of the `contradictions' inherent in the pharmaceutical industry, viewed by some as a `caring' industry because of its constant battle to make the population healthier and disease-free, whereas others see only the commercialism needed to get licensed drugs on the market ahead of their competitors. `Bad news', from thalidomide to the Exxon Valdes disaster, to Shell's operations in Nigeria and Brent Spar, has forced big business to look again at their actions and how these are presented publicly. `The pharmaceutical industry faces difficult issues, but it is not different from other industries where people have been forced to think long and hard about their position in society and discuss this with the outside world,' he said. The actions of environmental groups, combined with public pressure and Government support have prompted a response, most usually in the form of `green' or `social' reports, which are published alongside standard company annual reports. Among the salient issues facing Glaxo Wellcome and other drug companies is providing `good service' to patients involved in clinical trials, while safeguarding the results of the study. Access to medicines, and the contradiction that those most in need of them are often those least likely to be able to afford them, is another dilemma faced by Glaxo Wellcome. He noted that around 55 per cent of the population of developing countries will die from communicable diseases, many of which could have been treated by medications produced by pharmaceutical companies. Drugs companies are increasingly faced with a more informed public. Surveys suggest that around 90 per cent of British GPs prescribe drugs requested by their patients. `It is quite right that ours should be the most highly regulated industry in the world: it is quite literally a matter of life and death,' he said.