Our Views

Unless you’re a cave-dweller in some remote and undiscovered mountain retreat, you’ve been touched and will be touched by pharmaceuticals in one way or another.

A storm has gathered around Big Pharma, and something needs to be done about it because we’re all involved. From the cradle to the grave, we all look to our drug companies for help and protection against unwanted conditions and disease.

But all that is changing. Trust in our drug companies is waning or gone. More and more people are looking elsewhere for the help they need. Interest in alternative medicine has never been higher.

With patents expiring on some of their biggest money-makers, the essential profits the drug companies need to research and deliver new drugs in the coming decade are seriously threatened. Added to this scenario are the dozens, perhaps hundreds, of record-setting legal settlements over thousands of drug injuries and deaths. The public and even health care professionals are more than concerned about withheld and falsified drug testing results – and many are mad as hell.

Even investors have joined the dispute and are suing at least one Big Pharma company, ticked off that their cozy blue-chip nest-eggs are turning moldy around the edges because corporate misbehavior and mismanagement has stock values plummeting.

Who is Big Pharma Anyway?

Those new to the storm around Big Pharma might be asking, “Who or what is Big Pharma anyway? And why should I care? I seldom even take an aspirin.”

You should know coming into this discussion that the Big Pharma storm is nothing if not globally significant because of the impact this trillion-dollar industry has on our lives economically – never mind the problems about financing research and development of new drugs at a billion dollars a pop. Yes, it costs roughly a $billion in R&D for every drug that reaches the market.

Big Pharma is the nick-name of a collection of two dozen or so immensely rich and successful multinational corporations that make nearly all the drugs we rely on to get us over the rough spots in life, to help and heal us, and to save our lives when the chips are down. You can check out Wikipedia to see a list of their names. You’ll see 50 companies on that page, and it’s a very good chance there’s not a house on your street that doesn’t have at least one container with one of those names on it.

The originally derogative – but that may be changing – “Big Pharma” nickname was coined when the giant drug-makers began to be perceived a decade or more ago as 19th century snake oil salesmen earning obscene profits at public expense, rather than as the healers and saviors they once were.

Perhaps some day, Big Pharma could be seen again as helpers and healers, if the right steps are taken to fix the right problems. In coming blogs I will be looking more closely at the problems facing Big Pharma, and reviewing news and developments concerning this vital industry.

Big Pharma has had an enormous impact on our activity of providing medical drug detox services to an exploding population of people suffering from prescription drug problems.  I invite readers to share your comments, ideas and experiences with or about Big Pharma and the problems it is now experiencing.

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