1) Identify and describe the key stakeholders, conflicting interests, and princi
ID: 370109 • Letter: 1
Question
1) Identify and describe the key stakeholders, conflicting interests, and principles (ethical and unethical) to be resolved.
2) based on the high rates of AIDS/HIV in Africa and many people without receiving proper treatment or medications, the Pharmaceutical industry denied for many ethical and unethical reasons to the Africa population to make generic versions of the medicines to treat this disease/Virus. What will be a fair and sustainable solution for this problem that will benefit the Pharmaceutical industry and the Africa population, but at the same time will not negatively affect neither of them? Discuss and provide some examples of why this solution will work for both of them.
Read this case before answering the questions
https://blackboard.rutgers.edu/bbcswebdav/pid-1248343-dt-content-rid-3977251_1/courses/201792962036801/HBR%20-%20Life%20death%20and%20property%20rights.pdf
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Life, Death, and Property Rights: The Pharmaceutical Industry Faces AIDS In Africa At the start of the twenty first century, AIDS( poised to become the most deadly disease known to ity. In the 20 years since its first documented outbreaks, 244 million people had died from ALDS, while over 40 million were living around the world, AIl with the disease.1 Rapidly spreading a basic factors including education and safer sex were at a minimum, with 95% of infections occurring in the developing world2 In certain countries in sub-Saharan Africa as many as one in iency Virus), the virus that eventually 0 there were an estimated 4,700,000 people experts believed that worse was yet to come. With infection rates continuing to increase in many areas and treatment woefully inadequate for the vast ing world with an epidemic of unprecedented three adults tested positive for HIV (Human causes AIDS. In South Africa alone, in the infected with HIV/AIDS3 Terrifyingly majority of those infected, AIDS threatened the magnitude. him There were, to be sure, treatments for AIDS, While a cure remained frustratingly elusive decades after the disease first emerged, scientistsi and pharmaceutical firms had managed to concoct a series singly effective drugs that enhanced the quality of life for many AIDS victims and transmuted what had once been a certain sentence of death. The drugs were complicated to ive roughly $10,000 to $15,000 per person, per year. In administer, however, and extremely Africa, where average annual per capita incomes ranged from $450 to $8,900, they were essentially unaffordable. Not surprisingly death toll in Africa had begun by the 1990s to plague the world's pharmaceutical firms as well. Across Africa and into the developed nations, doctors and AIDS activists damored for an industrywide response to the AlDS epidemic. Pharmaceutical companies they argued, needed to lower the prices they charged for AIDS drugs in Africa. They needed to make their drugs more accessible and to ensure that even the poorest victims could benefit from cutting edge research Where the companies were unwilling or unable to comply with these demands, the aetivists argued, loxal phamaceutical firms should be able to step into the gap, selling generic versions of the sought-after drugs Such solntionst were anathema to the established Westem pharmaceutical industry. These were after all, that spent millions of dollars on research and development, firms that often spent can, or decades, perfocting the treatments they discovered. In their home markets, these firms werse protected by patent systems that enabled them to recover the development costs of their drugs. They not simply toing to tum around and distribute their product for free Moreover, the patents that
Explanation / Answer
Ans 1: The key stakeholders in the case are the patients, pharmaceutical companies, doctors, research and development wings of pharmaceutical companies, governments, non government agencies and active groups, human rights advocates. The conflicting interests are the inability and /or unwillingness of pharma companies to provide cheaper drugs to the AIDS patients in Africa who can not afford expensive medication and are left to die.Pharma companies can not let the manufacturing of generic drugs of patented drugs happen as long as they are under patent obligations. If they do it, the sanctity of patent laws is violated. If they lower the prices, the huge cost that goes into R&D of drugs can not be supported, or it may deter the research in AIDS. Other ethical issue is that the patients can't be left to die because of the fact that the drugs are expensive and they can't afford it.
And 2: The feasible and agreeable solution to the issue is the collective effort from all stakeholders. While many parties are suffering from the epidemic spiralling out of control, why alone pharma companies to blame.The Governments, particularly those from the developed nations need to contribute to the eradication of the problem, rather than fighting it in isolation. The pharmaceutical companies may lower the prices to the last affordable price, while the remaining part be funded by the NGOs, leading business houses operating out if Africa and the healthcare advocacy groups worldwide. It must be understood that the efforts in Africa will also help the cause elsewhere, given the global impact and the reach of the disease. Containing the epidemic will be a global achievement and will not only help save the patients and improving quality of their lives, but also help nations to improve the productivity and add to their national income.
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