The Humanitarian Responsibility Of Business Case Studies Example

When working on an antiparasitic drug for animals, a senior research scientist at Merck determined there might be a way to develop the drug to cure River Blindness in people. This condition was caused by parasitic worms in many third world countries. This condition can lead to uncontrollable itching which leads to skin disfigurement and other skin relate problems, blindness and some cases suicide. Millions in Africa and other third world nations are affected.
While a treatment or cure for the disease would ease the suffering of a large number of people, the research and development necessary to come up with a formula for humans would be expensive and the chances of recouping their losses from the people who needed the drug was almost zero since they had no money. This was the best case scenario as most drugs never make it to market since during the development and testing phases, they are dropped from consideration due to unacceptable side-effects, toxicity or lack of effectiveness. While laws were being considered to subsidize American pharmaceutical companies who developed drugs for rare illnesses that did not affect many people in the U.S. there was no such program for drugs to treat people outside the country and River Blindness was not a rare condition.
Despite the potential of the drug to prevent disfigurement and vision loss as well as death, many would argue that development of this drug was not acting responsibly to the stakeholders of the company. Pharmaceutical companies, like other businesses, exist to make money. Spending millions of dollars developing a drug that even if effective, has no earnings potential, some would argue, is not in line with promises made to shareholders. “We are not a social services agency,” they might argue.
Another argument might acknowledge the positive public opinion established by developing a drug that will not ultimately make the company money but that has widespread humanitarian appeal. Yet at the same time, the “revenue first at all costs” camp, would say that while no one was arguing that developing the drug was the “right” thing to do on a compassionate level, even if developing this drug engendered a more positive public reputation, ultimately this would also not help the company realize increased revenue. Ultimately, people do not choose to take certain medications based on the social position of the pharmaceutical company that developed it but based on how effective the drug is for addressing their problem.
Ultimately, however, if you focus exclusively on the bottom line and what you can make financially in the absence of the people who will be taking the drugs you develop and the potential for life changing outcomes, you will lose your humanity. Once you lose your humanity you will be on a slippery slope to as far as decision making goes, making decisions that totally ignore the human condition and focusing only on lining your own pockets and those of your shareholders. Merck therefore should develop the drug since they have plenty of successful drugs currently on the market and will not go bankrupt from underwriting or donating this drug to those who need it. It is also possible to partner with WHO or similar bodies in an effort to get some type of financial aid and oversight of administration of the drug to limit costs on sight.