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"Consumers should
give the pharmaceutical industry the benefit of the doubt"
By Marcos Lobo de Freitas Levy*
The population as a whole and several health
care professionals are not aware of the long, uncertain and tortuous
way to research and develop new drugs. Consequently, the pharmaceutical
industry that focuses on new medicine research and development deals
with one of the riskiest business in the world.
Indeed, studies published in 2003 developed by the independent institute,
Tufts Center For the Study of Drug Development from Tufts University,
located in Massachussets, US, state that the average cost to develop
a single drug comes around US$ 900 million, it takes about ten years
from its discovery to its likely trade. Besides, the study reveals
that among eight thousand drugs researched, only one comes into
the market.
That’s not for other reason that the International Federation
of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers & Associations IFPMA, committed
to Research and Development, states that throughout 2002 the companies
associated to them invested over 45 billion dollars in research
and development.
As we get aware of the studies we can easily understand why so many
research pharmaceutical companies have either been taken over or
incorporated.
However, all of these data are not seen or known by drugs consumers
or even health care professionals. What people really see is a very
small even tiny pill or capsule that apparently cannot be charged
the way it is regardless of its price.
That’s where the big pharmaceutical company gap lies in. It
started too late and in certain places it hasn’t even started
to educate its target audience about its importance. Such educational
process is necessarily a continuous and long-term one and it must
not be taken only when society complains or blames the company for
taking advantage of one’s trouble by charging high prices
for their products.
The consumer whose physician diagnosed any disease, even an ordinary
one, is not willing to understand long explanations on why one has
to pay a lot for the drugs, even though unconciously he knows the
drug will make him feel better, cure him and even save his life.
The truth is that over the last years the industry realized the
need of communicating with the consumer and has tried to do so.
I believe that, instead of accepting wrong concepts, consumers should
give the pharmaceutical industry at least the benefit of the doubt.
I am sure that open minds, free of any kind of prejudice, will certainly
understand better the real role of the pharmaceutical industry and
its importance, and they will judge it fairly.
(*) Marcos Lobo de Freitas Levy, former director of Boehringer Ingelheim
Brazil and Merck, Sharp & Dohme, is one of the partners at A.
Lopes Muniz Advogados Associados.
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