[ewmon]

Here's a recent news article on this.

Quote

The world's major pharmaceutical companies joined forces with governments and leading global health organizations Monday to donate drugs and scientific know-how to help control or wipe out 10 neglected tropical diseases by 2020.

Drugmakers have been criticized in the past for not doing enough to fight diseases of the poor as they concentrate instead on conditions more prevalent in rich nations, such as high cholesterol.

But in the largest coordinated effort yet to fight diseases such as Guinea worm disease, leprosy and sleeping sickness, the group promised to give away 14 billion doses of medicines by the end of this decade.

They will also share expertise and drug discovery work to invent new medicines for neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) that as yet have no treatments.

I'll be the first to accuse myself of being cynical, but when I read something like this:

• Am I really supposed to believe that any company will incur a voluntary out-of-pocket expense?
  
• Do these companies get shareholder approval for such donations?
  
• Do they turn around to their shareholders and tell them, sorry, profits will be down slightly for the next decade while we engage in this donation program over in Africa?
  
• Do they tell employees that raises will be slightly less over the next ten years due to their give-away program?
  
• Or do they increase the costs of their products to be paid by insurance companies and patients?

So, who's really doing the "giving" here, and is it "voluntary"? Big Pharma is joining forces with governments, so there's taxpayers' money right there. And I can't see but Big Pharma (company, shareholders, or employees) will not incur any loss due to their "donation" program, so that leaves their paying customers to foot the bill.

Have I made a lot of sense here, or am I being too critical?

[CaptainPanic]

I have no idea what's in it for the big pharma. It's not marketing, because their names aren't even mentioned in the article.

Perhaps it's as you say, ewmon, that they just get government money to do this.

I'm also always wondering if I am too critical (cynical?), but there simply aren't many companies in the world that aren't primarily about making money.

[Phi for All]

ewmon, on 30 January 2012 - 03:34 PM, said:

So, who's really doing the "giving" here, and is it "voluntary"? Big Pharma is joining forces with governments, so there's taxpayers' money right there. And I can't see but Big Pharma (company, shareholders, or employees) will not incur any loss due to their "donation" program, so that leaves their paying customers to foot the bill.

Have I made a lot of sense here, or am I being too critical?

You can bet that there are many benefits for Big Pharma by doing this. They may get government funding, they may get good will as time goes by, they may even be simply getting rid of some medicine that is obsolete or no longer in use.

There are many times when something is mandated for a company to do but they spin it so it seems voluntary, perhaps even their idea. This may be something like that.

[Arete]

I work on human african trypanosomiasis (HAT). Sanofi Aventis donate eflornithine for the treatment of the disease to the WHO
www.who.int/neglected_diseases/WHO_sanofi_partnership_2011/en/index.html

I have no idea what sort of in-kind benefits SA receive for the donation (nor have I ever seen it publicly reported), but I don't necessarily have an issue with them benefiting in kind - they aren't a charity, production of eflornithine is cost intensive and the recipients are ill-equipped to pay for it.

[ewmon]

Quote

Pfizer, Merck, Johnson & Johnson, Sanofi, GlaxoSmithKline, Novartis and others will donate an average of 1.4 billion treatments a year to people suffering from NTDs.

They get to share some of each other's research, which might reduce duplication of effort/time/resources, but also get some insight of their competitors' research, and some ideas for other drugs for other diseases, etc.

If they are actually donating out of their own coffers, they all know that each of them is taking a similar hit. For example, in the auto industry, it's not like only General Motors donating cars, but that it's also Ford, Chrysler, Honda, etc, etc.

These companies might be receiving some foreign aid money, but then it wouldn't be donations. Also, something that may not be well known, American foreign aid is money granted by the US government to foreign countries for use only in turning around and buying American products and services. And that's taxpayer money.