FT editorial: the pandemic has given the pharma industry a chance to redeem itself

An FT editorial (July 12^th) asked if Big Pharma can redeem itself, reversing years of scandal’ including instances of price gouging and the opioid epidemic which have left the pharmaceuticals industry a target of political anger, denting investor confidence.

‘We are asking for conditions on all public funding so that when the people pay for the vaccine, the vaccine gets to the people’, Gavin Yamey, STAT NEWS.

It suggests that the pandemic has offered the industry a shot at redemption — in the eyes of the general public and of markets, which have already made drug companies some of the biggest winners of the pandemic as investors believe the crisis will ease the political scrutiny that has hung over the industry.

The most striking and tragic example of the ‘years of scandal’- over 50 years ago was the effect of Grunenthal’s thalidomide prescribed for pregnant women.

Britain’s monitoring authority – the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) set up the (still little-known) yellow cards system which report serious side effects from drugs, particularly new ones. This alerted the MHRA to warn people taking Merck’s cholesterol-lowering drug simvastatin on which this site reported.

Polypharmacy is rife: 1 in 18 of the population is taking ten medicines or more – and potent pharmaceuticals carry risks as well as benefits. Dr Mark Porter reports that millions of people are taking medication such as blood pressure pills and statins to prevent problems they may never have. He warns, “The first thing I do when faced with a poorly patient is to look at their medication to see if it could be responsible. You would be surprised how often it is”.

A study (BMJ reference: Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery and Psychiatry (vol 75, p 1575), led by Dr Naghme Adab from the Walton Centre for Neurology and Neurosurgery, Liverpool, UK, showed that children born to women who had been prescribed valproate (licensed for use in epilepsy and bipolar disorder) during pregnancy were eleven times more likely to have a verbal IQ score of 69 or below, compared with children born in the general population.

Doubts have been  published about the effectiveness of Roche’s Tamiflu and GlaxoSmithKline’s Relenza.

Andrew Jack reported that US fines from whistleblower and government prosecutions against the pharmaceutical industry for irregular ‘marketing practices’, including payments to doctors, reached $20bn in the period 1991-2010. In less than three years since then, companies have been given further penalties totalling more than $13bn.

The FT editorial article ended by giving a few promising signs that companies are attuned to the need to behave responsibly during this global health emergency

• US drug company Gilead Sciences (above) will offer its five-day course of Remdesivir, a promising treatment, at the same price for governments across advanced economies
• Johnson & Johnson, have indicated they will forgo profits if they develop a vaccine,
• and AstraZeneca has teamed up with philanthropic bodies in poorer countries to ensure any cure is distributed fairly.

The FT’s editorial board ended: “The pandemic has given the pharma industry a chance to shine a light on both its current societal contribution and past life-saving work that was overshadowed by episodes of bad behaviour. It should not waste this redemptive opportunity”.

 

 

 

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Self-regulated companies: polluting the environment in USA, Canada, India and China

Joakim Bergman is Chief Executive of Changing Markets, a social enterprise which supports environmentally sustainable companies and products to take market share from less sustainable competitors and helps NGOs to run better campaigns that ‘more efficiently activate market shifts’.

He recently wrote to the Financial Times about the dumping of untreated antibiotic waste affecting the health of local communities and also contributes to the global rise of antibiotic-resistant bacteria. Mr Bergman highlighted a major UK government-backed review into antimicrobial resistance (more here) which estimates that by 2050, drug-resistant infections could kill 10m people per year globally and reported that the UK’s chief medical officer has spoken of this as a “catastrophic threat”.

Some “disturbing” environmental damage in India and China by ‘trusted brands’

He refers to an article in the FT which reports institutional investors’ concerns over the “disturbing” environmental damage resulting from multinational drug companies manufacturing in India. Recent research conducted by Changing Markets confirms many other reports showing that pharmaceutical pollution is a huge problem in China, where between 80 and 90% of the world’s antibiotic raw materials are manufactured. In both countries, multinational pharmaceutical plants are failing to treat and manage toxic and drug-rich waste, while their clients – including trusted brands – are ‘turning a blind eye to the problem’.

To a lesser extent, European countries, Canada and America (above) also have chemically polluted water. Read more here. According to a new Cary Institute study, Emma Rosi-Marshall, the lead author of a new study, has tracked pharmaceutical pollution in waters across the globe leading to disruption of ecosystem of streams, including American rivers in New York, Maryland and Indiana. She said when waste water is moved to sewage treatment facilities it is not treated for the removal of pharmaceuticals. Consequently, streams and rivers are exposed to synthetic compounds including antibiotics, stimulants, antihistamines and analgesics.

Concern about the problem in Eastern Europe is evident in the EU Guidelines on waste disposal and in 1999 the UNO World Health Organisation issued detailed guidelines in a more readable document, including disposal methods. In section 1.8 it stresses many dangers from ‘improper disposal or non-disposal of expired pharmaceuticals, including contamination of water supplies or local sources used by nearby communities or wildlife’.

Many companies, including Pfizer and AstraZeneca, have signed up to the Pharmaceutical Supply Chain Initiative, which has clear guidelines on wastewater management, but in light of the recent revelations it seems that the majority are failing to observe these guidelines.

Bergman concludes: “Without rapid action to remedy this, the global pharmaceutical industry risks becoming complicit in a public health disaster of monumental proportions”.