Case2 (adapted from Trevino and Nelson, 2017)

It takes about €180 million in research and 12 years to bring the average drug to market. Pharmaceutical companies need to know that they will make sufficient profit on their investment.

You are a senior executive for a multinational pharmaceutical company. The company has identified a particular drug as a possible cure for a particular form of blindness across several sub-Saharan African countries, caused by a rare species of parasite. The drug is shown to kill a similar species in other animals, but more research is needed to determine the safety and effectiveness of the drug in humans. This will cost hundreds of millions of Euro, as well as years of research and the expertise of several scientists. However, since the disease affects some of the poorest countries in the world, the company is likely to make zero profit.

Questions:

1. What are the potential costs and benefits of investing in research on this new drug?
2. How could this company justify their decision to invest in this drug to shareholders in the company?
3. How might the media treat the decision to either invest in the drug or not invest in the drug?
4. As a senior executive in this pharmaceutical company, please outline how you would follow each of the 8 steps to sound ethical decision making in this situation.