Csr farmaceutical industry intro

1 INTRODUCTION


1. The Social Corporate Responsibility in the Pharmaceutical Industry

The health sector is transforming itself in an industry of massive consumption, the huge investment in R&D have lead the products to become more and more sophisticated and empowered. The creation of to new line of " life style drugs " designated to cover the needs of fitness, wellness and psychologicalwell-being have spot to new generation of drugs and to new way of doing business in the industry.

The availability of information through the Internet, telemarketing and some direct advertising have drove to the to consumer to have more information about health, increasing concerns about quality, safety and against the complex treatments but also driving them to an judicial ruling medicationphenomenon.

The new generation of medicine users is in a position of demanding to better health care, to better prices and more options. The patient is not any more the passive to user, now is searching, comparing, questioning and putting pressure on the firms obligating them to form partnerships, to share information, technology and to increase the R&D budget in order to satisfy the needs ofa more and more challenging and well informed market.

The Pharmaceutical sector is also facing many ethical dilemmas concerning social responsibility.

The close relation between the industry, the Physicians and all the incentive methods enclosed by the industry to ensure the positive reaction in the Physicians and with it, guarantee the prescriptions.
The pharmaceutical's industry fightfor gain the right to advertise prescript medicine on the media, possibly misleading the consumers and increasing the auto medication index.
The necessity to free the patents in order to deliver the medicine world widely reducing automatically the sales price.
There are also tensions growing among the pharmaceutical industry and the governments caused by the national health budgets and the demandfor expensive treatment. None of them to appear to assume responsibility, hurting directly to the consumers.

Even between all these complex interactions, with no doubt, the drug market world is one of the most profitable industries now days, with more than 100% of increase in its market value in the last ten years. This number have given to this colossal industry, besides the enormousprofits, a great new spin, a complex evolution of the industry that is reflected in all the actors involved, since the role of the medics, employers, insurers and even the patient’s one which is evolving in the way of taking decisions.

Some of the most representative figures are:


In the last 40 years their profits were between the first five of the 500 more important companies and in 1991 thefirst 20 companies obtained approximately 5 times the average of profits of the 500 more important companies of the U.S.A. ([1])

From 1955 to 1972 the pharmaceutical industry has occupied the first place in revenues, with 9% of net earnings against an average of 6% of earnings of all the other manufacturing industries of the U.S.A.
The sums that the industry dedicates to university’s researchmeans 0.7% of their budget in average. This budget is dedicated to the develop as much new products as to develop colors and more pleasant flavors. In average other 9% of the budget is dedicated to develop market researches. Another 20% of the budgets are dedicated to develop advertising campaigns. (1)
The profits in the pharmaceutical industry relatively are elevated, clearly superior to theaverage of all the manufacturing industries. In Great Britain between 1975 and 1980, the average income was of 17,3%. The rate of growth from the pharmaceutical industry (world-wide), relatively stable and elevated, 8 to 10%, suggests whatever, if there are risks, the profits compensate them widely (2)

In the U.S.A., the price of medicines has been increased between 1980 and 1992 in 128%,...