Opinion: Give pharmaceutical execs the benefit of doubt — but they need to work for it
The polarized debate over drug pricing has generated cartoonish, sometimes colorful caricatures of the biopharmaceutical industry and its leaders. Critics of the industry have portrayed pharmaceutical leaders as ruthless, rapacious leaders who gouge patients to gratify greedy shareholders. While one might expect industry trade organizations to defend their leaders, their responses have sometimes portrayed leaders as powerless proxies of their shareholders whose product portfolios and profits would collapse if forced to negotiate a “maximum fair price” with Medicare, their largest customer. Neither characterization depicts the industry leaders I have worked with in my career or their long record of accomplishment.
Pharmaceutical leaders face competing pressures. Their companies are expected to develop products that reduce the burden of disease and make the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of health “one of the fundamental rights of every human being.” At the same time, they were trained in the Friedman doctrine, which dictates that they are employees of the shareholders and that their main responsibility is to “conduct the business in accordance with their desires, which generally will be to make as much money as possible while conforming to the basic rules of the society,” a principle that remains central to economics and finance despite its disavowal by many business schools, faculties, and even the Business Roundtable.
