On air: Your Questions for GlaxoSmithKline

I was wondering if you would answer how many animals per year, and which kind of animals, are killed by your computer, and are you ever hoping to not use animals for testing? So no word trickery is used, I realize the pharma industry uses in lab reports terms like euthanized, sacrificed, etc, but one of the main things done to get FDA approval for testing in humans, is animal testing, and most of those wind up in necropsies for the animals. I know for a fact that pharmaceutical companies who produce ocular medications test not only on Rabbits, rats, but also cats, dogs (especially Beagles), and Monkeys.

Do you think there will be a day one day when there will be no more animal testing and hence no more "need" to kill millions of animals per year?

argh, I meant company, not computer.

My question relates to the ethics of direct-to-consumer drug advertising, which is ubiquitous here in the USA. The USA is one of only two countries that allow this (the other is New Zealand). It drives costs up, since commercials aren't cheap. This can have a global impact, since the USA is a major supplier of much of the world's drug supply, as well as the R&D involved.

It also undermines the doctor-patient relationship, since a person who prods their doctor for a certain drug hasn't taken into account the many factors involved -- causes of their symptoms, what the drug targets, etc. It is the doctor's job to sort through these things, not the television's.

My question for Mr. Witty is thus this -- Given the financial implications of direct-to-consumer drug
advertising to those who need drugs, and given its negative impact on the doctor-patient relationship, how can you ethically justify continuing the practice?

SmithKline had a facility on Spring Garden Street in Philadelphia in the seventies. I worked down the street as a printer and I published in left wing publications, mostly under pseudonyms. When I asked for an application for work, I was told twenty minutes later that SmithKline did not hire anyone who wrote for periodicals. Is this typical of the company now?

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I would like to know why the drugs cost so much in USA and same drugs are cheaper in Canada or Mexico?

Also, what do drug companies think about the new health care legislation in the US?

What is the next miracle drug the company is working on?

What are drug companies doing to curb the prescription drug abuse among teens?

@ Chintan

I find it funny how efforts have been made to prevent Americans from importing drugs from Canada under the guise of "safety". This is incredibly blatant protectionism, and it has nothing to do with safety (unless we're talking about the safety of the drug company's bottom line).

Why do pharmaceutical companies such as yourself keep offering SSRI’s such as Paxil even though they have been linked to some behaviors such as suicide, homicide, and life destroying manic behaviors. You won’t meet a mental health professional that doesn’t say they “are over prescribed”. The doctors have all been required to sets for disorders such as bipolar prior to prescription of SSRI/ SNRI, it is no secret the 90% of the prescriptions are filled without these test. Further the FDA has required that the prescribing doctor “keep in close contact with family members” during the initial phase and after any changes for “strange behavior”. However, that is a farce as doctors can’t because of patient/ client privilege and HIPAA laws. Paxil is one of the worst offenders of the cover up of these ill side affects.

Know that you are answering the question of a guy who saw one of the most kind, compassionate, loyal, loving, and devoted women you could ever meet spiral into the 180 degrees of that description within months of being prescribed an SSRI. How do you explain www.paxilprogress.org type forums popping up all over the net?

Do you and your firm believe that health care is a basic human right? If yes, why dosn't your firm use it's infleunce to press for single payer health care in the States?

What's your firm's policy on holistic treatments? Would you consider research and development into herbs (such as tumeric and ging seng)?

@ T

You can't make money off of Turmeric, and you cannot patent something that is natural that grows from a plant, so they won't go near it. By nature, Pharma needs to create a drug, and not use holistic/natural things because they aren't patentable. If the ultimate cure for cancer turned out ot be garlic, the pharma industry wouldn't touch it, and would pursue other avenues because there's more money to be made if you can patent something that doesn't grow in the ground.

Do you advertise on American TV? If so, when do you plan to stop? Please and thank you very much.

Sarah:

Is this enough or should it be doing more?

I think in due respect, they should be doing more regarding releasing information on Malaria....

(disclosure: I have prescriptions that are from GlaxoSmithKline...)

(Dennis Junior)

Can you please explain, in a way that we can understand, why the share price of GSK has never come close to matching that of either Smith Kline Beecham or Glaxo Wellcome prior to the merger ? Can you honestly say that the merger was a success for investors ??

How do you address the idea that as a society we are consuming ever more manufactured pharmaceuticals for - if not imagined illnesses then very minor conditions - with drugs that seem to have a horrifying list of potential side effects that are known and likely unknown future long term effects?

Yes people want the quick fix of a pill and pharmaceutical companies are merely meeting that demand. But as much as they are to blame shouldn't the large pharmcos admit their part in stimulating - dare I say creating - that demand?

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Do you consider that there is a simmering hate against big pharma for a while and there are so many facts coming out in blogs and media that many of the efforts by companies like yours are only for lining the pockets of your stakeholders and not really so much for curing diseases or helping people etc. do you and your companies leaders care about these comments, blogs and ideas or do you simply ignore them and get on with it?

1) Over the last year, non-governmental organizations, governments and UNITAID (the UN-hosted medicine purchasing facility) have called upon GSK and other major pharmaceutical companies to join a patent pool that would reduce prices for new HIV and AIDS medicines. However, until now GSK has refused to commit to joining the patent pool. Has your company changed its position? If not, what are your reasons?

2) Over the last three decades, there has been nearly no innovation for medicines or vaccines to treat or prevent a broad range of neglected diseases. What can be done to address the lack of innovation on behalf of the world's poorest people? Do you support new models of innovation, such as prize funds, which could help increase innovation and access to medicines?

3) According to the World Health Organization, over 80 percent of all deaths from non-communicable diseases (such as cancer, heart disease and diabetes) occur in developing countries today. Do pharmaceutical companies have a 'social responsibility' to ensure affordable prices for medicines to treat non-communicable diseases, much as companies often claimn to offer with respect to treating HIV and AIDS?

4) At present, the European Union is considering revising acustoms regulation that led to the wrongful seizure of legitimate generic medicines en route from India to developing countries that have been wrongfully labeled as counterfeit? India and Brazil have declared the EU regulation as illegal under WTO rules. Does GSK think the European Union should revise the regulation? If not, why?

Steve,

Come on now. everything is not about money. Next thing you know you will be saying "you can't make money off the sun, wind, and water". Don't you believe that some companies exist just because they want to help their fellow man? Even if they have to live on the poverty of low tripple digits to do it.

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@ Dwight

You can patent technology, but you cannot patent the sun. You cannot patent wind. You can make technology, and patent that. Medication is not technology, though it's the result of technology. How can they patent the process of "insert seed into ground, grow plant, harvest plant, put plant into mouth?" They cannot. And that is the exact reason pharma companies do not look for natural remedies.

Reports about the proliferation of look-alike, fake medicines (especially in developing countries) appear more and more often. I presume that GSK is concerned about both the revenue loss and the health implications to the unsuspecting who buy and use these fake drugs for treatment. What is GSK doing and what more can it do to stymie the imitation of medicines, to protect the reputation of its products, and to ensure that those taking pills are getting the treatment they have paid for?

Questions to GlaxoSmithKline
It has been known even in small countries distanced from the USA like Lithuania that pharmaceutical companies work in agreement with physicisans, and general practitioners prescribe drugs in accord with the profit of pharmaceutical companies rather than minding the patient's physical and financial potential. I wonder therefore whether GlaxoSmithKline is inclined to mind its social responsibilities and whether any honour code applies to pharmaceutical business.There has been much talk of the lack of morality and honour in relation to the banks and their role in the present economic crisis. Pharmaceutical companies are still closer to man's sensitive status. Do they mind it? Thank you Marija Liudvika Rutkauskaite

How much money does GSK spend in lobbying each year?

Do you feel that GSK manufacturing facilities in Asia can produce drugs of the same quality like the ones made in USA?
And if the answer is YES, why not sell drugs that are made at a cheaper cost and in turn make them more affordable for patients?
And if the answer is NO, are you making substandard products for the people in the third world?

Would Mr. Witty mind discussing the practice of companies like GSK paying generic drug manufacturers not to produce generic drugs, and how such practices benefit the consumer? Thanks!

@steve -

They can certainly patent a process of extracting a compound out of a natural source and making that medicine. Aspirin comes to mind, though it's now old enough that the patent has expired.

My concern with drug manufacturers is the barrage of advertisements and income bracket marketing that permeates the American media. I know so many people that are on multiple kinds of pills for what seems like relatively minor afflictions... Some caused by one drug only to be counteracted by another. That coupled with the laundry list of warnings that accompany each drug, I have to wonder if the first priority of big pharmaceutical companies is to turn a profit for CEO's and sharholders rather than solving real health issues.

Ken in Cleveland

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@ Mike

Not really, not anymore, because the process would have to be new, and non obvious. If you want to market turmeric, you grind it up, and put it into a capsule. If they want to make a pill out of it, the process to make it into a pill has been around forever, so you cannot patent making a pill out of turmeric. It would have to be something that has never been done before, like some kind of plant that never has been put into pill form because of some kind of stability issue, then if they had a new process, then they could patent the process, but not the plant itself...

There's no money to be made in plants or natural products because they cannot patent it, so they don't look into this area...

If it's something that they make out of something natural, but they heavily change it in a lab, like with certain hormones for hormone therapy, it's the process that they patented it, since a very common hormone replacement therapy is made out of horse urine, the horse urine isn't patented, but the process of making it into a pill is, though I think it is going to , or has already expired..

@ Ramesh

But that's his job, and the purpose of the corporation, to make money for the shareholders, if he didn't do that, he'd be violating his fiduciary duty to the corporation, and could subject to a shareholders derivitive suit. It's not a corporation's job to due what's best for the public, they exist to make money for shareholders and to limit liability of the shareholders.

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GSK's website states that GSK spends a lot more on R&D than on direct-to patient advertising. What are these numbers?

What's the situation of pharmaceutical industry in China? What's the relation of Glaxo and other important industries with Chinese authorities? Do you think that Chinese pharmaceutical prodution is sure for health?
Thank you,
Tommaso Debenedetti
(Rome, Italy)

I empathise with the tough position pharma companies are in today. It's difficult to defend oneself from the effects of other organizations and professionals sometimes reckless behaviour. News organisations that only print one side of the cost story. The FDA's lack of seamless and transparent oversight. And physicians who prescribe off-label and push the blame to pharmaceutical companies.

Can you please address the time and cost it takes to develop one approved drug? Can you also clarify the true difficulties of providing free/low cost medicines to developing countries (e.g. bureaucracy)? Finally, can you also explain the off-label prescribing situation?

Personally I think pharmaceutical industry is fundamentally commercial in many countries as many drugs are beyond the means of the destitute who have to resort to traditional medicine or to resign to their illnesses because of the lack of the means to acquire the necessary drugs.

Concerning third world countries, don't you think that there should be prices appropriate to the income of poor people that should be implemented and not kept just as a promise?

What's the utility of a drug in a country if there aren't enough qualified doctors and cheap and well-equipped hospitals? For this do you envisage helping needy countries to have enough doctors and hospitals as a part of your social programme?

Alright, I would like to officially lodge a complaint about this blog, and especially pertaining to this subject. How pharmaceuticals companies work and why so many of us are frustrated is a complex issue. So I made a post which used a term referencing those that peddled pharmaceuticals in the "old American west" from a wagon. WHYS moderators sent me a notification and a very nice email explaining that "there are a number of allegations about drugs that we can't substantiate". So, I "substantiated" them by making another post using the government sponsored and accountable website for the FDA and a story written by the accredited news agency "The Associated Press". However, I got an email that was sent to me stating that the comment had been removed because "they contain links to other websites

Do you see the conundrum here?

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Mr. Witty:

What concerns me, is the eventual patent in 2012; About Advair and its new "competitors" that will come and take it place, will you be keeping it available to those of us who take ....

Disclosure: I and several of my relatives take Advair..

(D)

My perception of the pharmaceutical industry is entirely negative. The business of making life-saving preparations should be not-for-profit, and civil society will not be mature until this becomes true.

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The pharmaceutical industry needs to go through a sea-change! The commercial angle needs to be changed to a humanitarian one. The current emphasis on profit should be changed. The pharmaceutical industry should ensure that pharmaceutical drugs are affordable especially in poorer countries. A leaf should be taken from Bill Clinton's highly commendable efforts to ensure that generic drugs for AIDS are available and affordable in Africa.

The pharma industry is about making money. That's in their best interest. It's not their job to be humanitarian, it's to make profits for their shareholders. Telling them they shouldn't be profit driven, or that they should be humanitarian, is like me telling you that you should be taking homeless people into your home, since you have space for them.

If you're not doing it, why should they?

I want to know what you feel your company's responsiblity is as far as giving back to the world community, and what can you personally do to make sure GSK becomes a more socially responsible company and a leader in the industry.

Will the new US healthcare bill result in better and more affordable access to prescriptions, or will they become less attainable to lower income individuals due to new insurance practices and premiums?

I know that it costs a lot of money to develop a drug I appreciate why drug companies have to charge relatively high prices. However in my travels I find drugs are a lot more in the United States than any other countries. Are we paying for the R&D costs for the rest of the world? If so why?

Mr. Witty,

A family member is a long-time executive at GSK, I am privy to the GSK payscale. This person's salary is grossly inflated in the six-figures. As a person doing similar work for far less money in a non-pharma sector, I know this to be accurate.

Top sales people receive lavish free trips. Execs stay at four-star hotels when traveling. It is outrageous.

Obviously, prices of drugs are inflated to pay for all this nonsense.

As a consumer, I find this offensive.

• Curious about the settlements for Avandia and Polygrip. These products were shown to harm consumers. How much profit was netted before the harmful effects were discovered? It seems profit was placed before well-being and safety of consumers.

• How many studies to support drug efficacy were actually performed in GSK labs, published and distributed by GSK rather than replicated by objective third parties?

• How much does GSK spend each year on lobbyists paid to influence policy in Washington DC - especially at FDA?

Should HIV really be such a high priority focus, given it's a highly preventable disease? Shouldn't more focus be put on diseases like heart disease and cancer, which kills most people? Imagine if all the resources for HIV could be devoted to other diseases that cannot be so easily avoidable like cancer? Simple behavioral changes could massive reduce the incidence of HIV/AIDS.

One more question about profits. How much does your company make in profits annually, that is, what percent of your after tax income is profit, and shouldn't that money go to the social causes you claim to support?
Brandi
listening on OPB radio in Eugene, Oregon.

Ros, I'd really appreciate it if you'd ask him about the animal experimentation, how many animals are killed in the development of these drugs, and if GSK or any other pharma companies have any alternative testing proposals that the regulators might one day allow?

Let us personalize these "adverse side affects" that Mr. witty just glossed over. You have a family member suffering from mild anxiety, Post Partum, or trying to quit smoking. They take a drug like paxil and even though they never had a history of suicide, kill themselves. It is such a real problem that the FDA requires a black box warning. Yet he just brushes these off as "adverse affects"? This is a problem.

A problem that could be easily remedied by only letting qualified doctor prescribe them. My GP can not prescribe or administer Chemotherapy, so why can a GP administer psychotherapy.

His primary duty is to the shareholder. Obviously he wants to have the price something most can afford, and that it's safe, as if they cannot afford the drug, they cannot buy it, and if it kills them, they cannot buy more, so there's less money to be made, but his primary duty, legally, is to the shareholders of the corporation, and he could not decide on his own to be more "socially conscious" and keep his job.

Why is it somehow not rude to ask this man how much money he makes? Unless you are a shareholder of GSK it's not your concern how much he makes. Would you not think it's rude if someone asked how much you made? Will the person who asked that question please let us know how much they make?

Awwww---Isn't Witty one swell guy? Hah! Go get him, Ros!

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You can't patent a plant, like marijuana. They won't have any interest in it.

As a medical organisation, Médecins Sans Frontières is providing treatment for 140,000 people living with HIV in the developing world. Patients who have been on treatment for a long time, need to move to newer drugs as the old ones become less effective. However, these newer medicines, some of which have been developed by GSK, are far more expensive. Will GSK’s HIV and AIDS branch, ViiV, put the patents for these important medicines into the Patent Pool set up by UNITAID so that many generic companies all over the world can compete to produce these newer life-saving medicines- competition we know is the only proven way to bring prices right down for patients in the developing world?

Pharmaceutical companies propagate the myth that they pay vast amounts for research & development,
but a lot of the risky work is undertaken by public funds and foundations,
and what they actually pay for themselves is largely market research.
Profits are of course not shared with the public, who paid for the research.

Gerry, Berlin.

Dear Andrew,

I’m writing as science Director of patient safety charity Safer Medicines Trust- we are interested in pre-clinical safety testing in particular. What is your opinion of emerging human biology-based technologies? We are working hard to make it easier for medical scientists to obtain ethical access to waste human tissues. I’m particularly interested to hear your views on VaxDesign’s miniature immune systems cultured from immune cells harvested from blood donations (http://vaxdesign.com/)?

Best regards,

Dr Margaret Clotworthy

Hello Mr. Witty,

I was part of the layoff at GSK Consumer Healthcare which occured in August 2008. My career at GSK was over 14 years and I represented a major medical market known as Pinellas County which is considered Tampa Bay. The territory was declared low potential but has a population of about 900,000 plus residents and has done very well for GSK. I thoroughly enjoyed my successful years of employment and would like my employment reinstated.

Thank you for your time and consideration. I look forward to hearing from you.

Regards,
Charlene

Hello Mr. Witty,

I am a final year medical student, editor-in-chief and founder of the London Student Journal of Medicine. I have for most of my medical school training felt much disenfranchised by Big Pharma's approach to developing markets and frankly its social responsibility towards patients globally.

I will however like to thank the BBC and yourself for opening me up to some of the changes that appears to be going on in the background. More about these innovative approaches to pharmaceutical markets need to be made available to healthcare professionals and trainees. I believe being on the frontier of health provisions, health professionals are best placed to hold the industry to these emerging standards.

I will also like to commend your company on relaxing your application of patents in developing countries. The approach of charging patients in developing countries relative to earning capacity as oppose to applying blanket charges is also commendable. I will like more of the factors incorporated into proportional costing in these places to be made available publicly. I have always held the believe that this approach will increase your total market, even if the profit's yielded is not the evenly spread globally, something I am sure varies at present. Combined with your pledge to contribute 20% of your profits towards improving health infrastructure in these markets should result in growth to the point where they yield profits similar to developed markets.

Finally, I will like to request an interview of you by some medical students from one of the London medical schools to further explore some of the points raised in yesterday's program. I appreciate you must be a very busy man and we (thelsjm) will only commission this request at a mutually convenient time.

Many thanks
Kevin Agyemang

It is foremost for any business to make the most money where ever they can. Each time a phamaceutical company think as to which drug is most profitable to produce, the costs and feasability involved for success, and if worthwhile in profitability a decission is made accordingly. Consideration to produce a drug for Malaria, which effects people in third world countries does not make it much worthwhile in the business sense, hence it is of low priority. Smith Cline Beecham merged with Glaxo, which is now a huge company, the management is firstly resposible to its share holders and must always prove they are in the business to make money.

Breaking News from CNN.

http://news.blogs.cnn.com/2010/04/27/drug-maker-to-pay-520-million-fine-for-illegal-marketing/

Drug manufacturing giant AstraZeneca will pay a $520 million fine for illegally marketing the antipsychotic drug Seroquel, the Justice Department announced Tuesday. They made like 5 billion world wide off the sales. I would say that was a good investment as long as you don’t care about the lives being destroyed.

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