With all of the economic and social disparities in this modern day world, the pharmaceutical industry is no angel. For a millennia old disease, progress on the malaria vaccine trials has been slow and limited to only a handful of African states amidst the outbreak of a “super malaria” strain in nearby South-East Asia. Many of us were dismayed of Martin Shkreli being given unethical rights to sell the life-saving drug Daraprim at a 5000% price hike. Indeed this industry is plagued with stories of social injustice. The choice of a reliable healthcare plan that will ameliorate the desired health outcomes based on your lifestyle factors is far more a complex personal decision than choosing your next best mobile phone. The paradigm shift in clinical practice is to profile patient diagnostics based on genetic profiling.
i3 Consult advocates for a shift in social responsibility within the pharmaceutical industry just like there has been a shift towards patient centric clinical trials amongst healthcare professionals. We believe the pharmaceutical industry needs to throw away the old hat of being cost effective for itself and stop “throwing the baby out with the bath water” on the social impact of the medicines they are trying to develop. The pharmaceutical industry too needs to work across a value-chain of embracing the patient-first approach.