Big Pharma feeling misunderstood

The CEO of Bayer, Marijn Dekkers, was last month reported to have said the following:

"We did not develop this [cancer] drug for Indians. We developed it for Western patients who can afford it."

What Dekkers said was in response to a question about a decision by an Indian government official to grant a compulsory licence to patents on said cancer drug, on the grounds that Bayer's price for it ($65,000) was far too expensive for Indian patients. Dekkers added that he thought the move towards a compulsory licence -- permitting low-cost generic equivalents to be produced and sold by companies other than Bayer -- was "essentially theft."

A couple of websites condemned the comments as the usual 'profits before persons' standpoint of Big Pharma, albeit stated much more brutally than CEOs of major drug companies generally do.  It turns out that Bloomberg News, who originally ran the quote, actually manipulated it a bit. What Dekkers actually said was:

"Is this going to have a big effect on our business model? No, because we did not develop this product for the Indian market, let's be honest. We developed this product for Western patients who can afford this product, quite honestly. It is an expensive product, being an oncology product." 

Plus compulsory licensing is theft. Bloomberg News rightly corrected itself, although if anything the actual quote sounds even worse.

What is really ironic is that Dekkers' statement was made at a conference called Buffering the Pharma Brand: Restoring Reputation, Rebuilding Trust. It could alternatively been called: we make you sophisticated drugs, that you can't make yourself, so where is the love? The participants in the conference seem bewildered that the public trusts pharmaceutical companies less than producers of alcohol and tobacco. How is this possible? In this regard, Dekkers' statement may have inadvertently been the most insightful 'take home' message of that particular get-together.