Taking Pride in Pharma
If you work in the pharmaceutical industry, sooner or later you're likely to meet someone who doesn't think much of what you do. According to Gallup, only 25% of Americans have a positive view of the industry. (Even worse is working in pharmaceutical advertising, as the advertising industry is only perceived positively by 26%.) The only industry that ranks lower is the oil and gas industry, which many people believe is destroying the planet: why would an industry devoted to creating products that improve health be so widely reviled?
At its core, this negative perception comes from the perceived prevalence of greedy "big pharma" companies that exploit sickness to make obscene profits. Unfortunately, there have been enough cases where companies put financial gain over ethical behavior (remember Martin Shkreli?) to give fodder to those who believe the industry is somewhere between corrupt and evil. Those whose lives or families have been shattered by opioid addiction, to pick one example, have ample reasons to hold pharma companies in contempt.
However, it is impossible to work in the industry long and really thing that the vast majority of people you collaborate with are money-obsessed moral monsters. You're far more likely to meet talented folks who chose this industry because it felt more meaningful than working in finance or at a company that makes less essential products. And they are often inspired by the possibility of playing some role in fighting disease and keeping people alive and healthy for longer.
And it doesn't take long to realize why the profit motive enhances that mission: money follows the biggest breakthroughs. If a small biotech has an asset that can put some type of cancer into remission, or control the symptoms of a debilitating chronic illness, private equity companies will rush to invest, which speeds clinical trials and helps the company launch the product sooner and more broadly. Or else a bigger pharma company will buy it and leverage their existing resources to mass-distribute the new brand. And after everyone makes their money on the success, they sink a lot of the profits into chasing the next success. We might find something unpleasant in the idea that people need money, promotions and influence to motivate their actions (and wish they would altruistically work for the greater good), but the industry as it exists leverages those motivations to advance science and make people healthier.
Why am I making this defense of the industry I work in? Frankly, because so few people do. Too often, people who work in the pharma industry take the public criticisms to heart, and don't explain why what they do makes a positive difference. They also don't realize that companies like Civica (who I've had the pleasure of working with) and Mark Cuban Cost Plus Drugs are working to address some of the pricing issues that make drugs (especially generics) more costly than they need to be.
Ultimately, if we don't collectively work to improve our industry's reputation, the public will support measures like the Inflation Reduction Act, which gives the government the right to force down the price that Medicare will pay for a number of blockbuster branded drugs. (This is described as a negotiation, but the only options are to take the government's price, withdraw from Medicare, or pay fines in excess of the drugs' revenue.) Many pharma companies are suing to fight this, but most people hearing about it will just assume the greedy companies are refusing to charge a fair price.
To change the way people see the drug industry, we have to do a better job of helping people see the positive good it achieves. Who would want to live in a world where the only option for your family member with cancer is chemotherapy? Where no good options other than surgery existed for patients with Ulcerative Colitis and Crohn's Disease? Where contracting HIV is a death sentence? But we also need to remember the ultimate responsibility we have to be good stewards of the brands we work on, and advocates for doing the right thing for patients and physicians. If we are acting ethically and pushing innovation forward, we should be proud to talk about it.