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I deleted the last sentence in the introduction. "The most sucessful and influential industries..." I have done research on the topic and cannot find any conclusive evidence of such facts. The only research I found, which seemed biased, suggested the pharmaceutical industry had profit margins of approximately 26% which does not seem accurate for many smaller companies. The deleted sentence could be true but to make such assertions about an industry the contributor should cite the source. Johnbushiii ( talk) 18:52, 8 April 2008 (UTC)
Based on my brief exploration of Wikipedia, I don't think the degree of bias in this article is typical of Wikipedia in general. There are key facts missing (e.g. in the discussion of AIDS drugs, no mention is made of the millions of dollars worth of medicine donated to African countries by the drug companies). If facts such as these were included, a more balanced article would result, but perhaps the author's agenda would not be served. I will try to find time to edit the most blatant portions of this article. 68.72.111.4 ( talk · contribs)
I edited some items. Thanks... btw, I wrote the first item on this discussion page.
I added a short note on Medicare Part D because of the size of the revenues associated with this program. CommodiCast 21:51, 9 October 2005 (UTC)
In the last few days I rearranged and added a number of sections. CommodiCast 20:28, 12 October 2005 (UTC)
I wonder if anyone else feel that the (very nice) sections on Drug discovery and development would be better placed in the articles of those names? There is a lot of duplication between those articles, this one, and the article on regulatory requirements. -- Dogbertd 09:42, 24 November 2005 (UTC)
Drugs don't grow in trees (well, some do) and need to be manufactured. There is a section missing on this subject, I think. Maybe I'll write it some day, including fermentation, chemical synthesis, outsourcing, etc. The pharmaceutical industry is quite wastefull compared to other chemical industry branches, but it has the best public image. Maybe I'll comment on this too.
Needs to be setup with the ISBN rather than a link to Amazon.com. This should be done or the books deleted. Cordially SirIsaacBrock 01:08, 20 January 2006 (UTC)
The article had stated that Sanofi-Aventis R&D spending was USD $9.3 billion. However the actual source (Source: Wendy Diller and Herman Saftlas, "Healthcare: Pharmaceuticals," Standard & Poor’s Industry Surveys, 22 December 2005, 13) for these figure list Sanofi-Aventis as spending USD $3.9 for R&D. Since this is most likely a typo, I have corrected the error.
The bullet point that begins, "From 1980 to 1997..." should have a citation for the statistics given concerning favorable study results. In addition, the last two sentences could use either some documentation or an external link. I'm not trying to dispute the points one way or the other, but a reference would be especially informative, given its location in the controversy section.
In the Drug Discovery section, I am not sure, but are those just cut and paste quotations from another site? Sorry for not delving into it at the moment, but it seems like that should be addressed. Perhaps by rewording and creating new text or by at least a more clear recognition of the source. As it is, they are in quotes, but by the paragraph and barely noticeable. Sorry for just complaining and not doing anything about it. Let me know if I'm off on this, otherwise I'll eventually get around to putting myt money where my mouth is and addressing it myself. -- Gbinal 10:08, 10 April 2006 (UTC)
There is another copyvio in the discussion of industry sales; a sentence is lifted straight from Forbes magazine. I was just looking for figures when I noticed it. I will get to it soon. Academic38 ( talk) 09:15, 11 December 2008 (UTC)
I've given this article a bit of an overhaul. Expanded the history section. Tried to rationalise all the different levels of headings. Integrated the disparate points collected under 'controversy' in to the topics to which they refer. Added some new bits and pieces. EverSince 22:29, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
In the table of companies by 2008 sales there is a mistake. GSK and Novartis have been given the same sales figure by mistake. The sales (in M$) for Novartis should be 36,172. (
Andyfinlay (
talk)
19:06, 10 January 2010 (UTC))
This article blends the concept of the entire pharmaceutical industry into the idea of the single company. I don't think that is particularly useful. These two topics have distinct uses, especially when it comes time to pick an appropriate internal link for another Wiki article. For example, a company that manufactures plastic bottles of use to both the pharmaceutical industry and beverage industry is better linked to the pharm industry link, while a drug company in NJ or its CEO is better linked to the pharm company link. A city that has a great number of pharmaceutical companies within its borders should link to pharm companies, while an association that represents the pharm industry has a broader "industry" nature. Such a distinction between industry and firms would allow for development of more sophisticated discussions within Wiki, such as 1)how the industry as a whole deals with the AIDS crisis or lobbying in Washington, DC, versus 2) where individual companies are located, who works for them, and maybe some microeconomic issues like liability, advertising, local government regulation, and hiring. This seems to be an issue on many industries, such as ceramics industry, food and beverage industry, et al. I've been working on the plastics industry myself. Pat 22:18, 13 May 2007 (UTC)
There are too many sub-sections with only a few sentences, these should be expanded or (preferably) consolidated. Also, many of the sections should link to main articles (if they exist) or split into new articles. For instance, "From drug discovery to market" should link to the separate articles on "Drug Discovery" and "Drug Development". The overall arc of the article should also be rethought. The introduction could use a little more substance. History is a good start to the main body of the article, but there is no logical order to the sections that follow. Criticisms should generally be worked into the article where appropriate, and not given their own section unless there is nowhere else to put them. More specific topics should be placed at the end of the article. I apologize for not implementing these suggestions myself; maybe when I have more time. AAMiller 22:01, 6 August 2007 (UTC)
i think tat kevin trudeau, being an important part of the pharmceutical company criticism organizations, belongs as a see-also reference on the phrmarceutical company talkpage. the editors who have revered my edits have given no reason why apart from their possible prersonal dislike of Mr. Trudeau's work and i dontthitnk that sa valid reason to violate wikipedia: NPOV. and otehr guidelines protecting wikipedia from bias. Smith Jones ( talk) 00:31, 10 January 2008 (UTC) Smith Jones ( talk) 00:31, 10 January 2008 (UTC) Smith Jones ( talk) 00:31, 10 January 2008 (UTC)
Smith Jones you said "MR. Trudeau's presitigous name" in one of your edit summaries. How is his name prestigious? According to the article on him "On November 19, 2007, he was found in contempt of court again for "patently false" claims in his weight loss book" and "The FTC currently restricts his ability to promote and sell any product or service." "Trudeau has criminal convictions in the early 1990s for fraud and larceny." It seems that all he is really notable for is his products which he is not allowed to sell. Somehow I don't think the words of a convcited fellow who was convicted for crimes in this area (false claims about health products) are reliable. Also seeing as it is currently illegal for him to promote his products within the United States (where he is a citizen) it seems inappropriate to reference any source in which he does that in an article that is not about him or his products. I think the comment should be removed entirely. JamesStewart7 ( talk) 05:53, 10 January 2008 (UTC)
I have proposed that this article be moved to Pharmaceutical industry. We can then write a short article instead of this for "Pharmaceutical company". See comments above at #Pharmaceutical_Industry_vs_Company. Eric Kvaalen ( talk) 08:56, 7 September 2008 (UTC)
I just thought its wierd that theres not a presence of the opposition of the modern pharm industry,like treating only symptoms and not looking into permanent cures, and their being the one who got most drugs illegal and that kinda thing. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.231.239.8 ( talk) 08:20, 29 November 2008 (UTC)
= == Pharmaunternehmen
Wann gibt es schlechte Nachrichten für die Pharmaindustrie
Where is Teva in the list of top companies by revenue, on the Teva wikipedia page it says the revenue was 11 billion, and I can't see the company in the list on this page. Is it a mistake? Can some one edit the list? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 132.68.249.235 ( talk) 23:11, 24 January 2010 (UTC)
Make its own article or include something in here? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.29.121.91 ( talk) 00:40, 31 July 2010 (UTC)
How do one identify the pharmaceutical products and taking into account the input-transformational-output 41.191.104.250 ( talk) 20:04, 15 February 2011 (UTC)model.
The entire section on R&D is very biased, really needs to be redone. Neosiber ( talk) 23:31, 30 April 2011 (UTC)
jkjl lkjlk kj;lk j;lkj — Preceding unsigned comment added by 41.95.14.101 ( talk) 04:32, 26 November 2011 (UTC)
This has been mentioned before. It seems a major omission to have no information on drug manufacturing processes. There are a few related articles dotted around, so perhaps at least a links section could be created to, for example: Validation_(drug_manufacture); Good_Manufacturing_Practices; Tablet#Manufacturing; Spheronisation; Tablet_press; etc.
Jpedant ( talk) 23:58, 18 November 2011 (UTC)
I added the origens of the word pharmaceutical. 2602:306:C518:62C0:1E75:8FF:FEBB:2125 ( talk) 06:15, 17 July 2012 (UTC)
This can be variously described as non-neutral POV or as unsupported by any citation from a reliable source. The first citation describes a case in which from the company's point of view, was not a lawsuit for "revealing ethical issues" but for breaking a confidentiality agreement. In fact, the court ruled in the company's favor. One could reasonably include this item in the article as an example of a lawsuit against a physician employee who claimed to have ethical concerns, but balance would also require stating that the lawsuit was filed for violation of a confidentiality contract, and that a neutral court ruled in the company's favor. You can't just present the defendant's version of the story, especially when a competent court has reviewed the case and ruled against him.
The second citation includes no examples of individuals being sued by a pharmaceutical company. So it is completely irrelevant to the statement that cites it as support.
As a minor aside, both articles are news stories written by journal editors, not scientific papers, so neither is peer reviewed. Alfred Bertheim ( talk) 04:34, 4 March 2013 (UTC)
Respectfully Alfred Bertheim ( talk) —Preceding undated comment added 17:16, 4 March 2013 (UTC)
Hi Alfred, I see you restored some of this again. Is the source a secondary source? SlimVirgin (talk) 17:00, 9 March 2013 (UTC)
Organon conducted the trial according to the originally planned protocol and found that the dose that Dr. Stiekema opposed provided the same reduction in mortality as the other three doses examined. [1]
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Hi Slim,
Primary sources are permitted when they serve to source factual material. Indeed, every statement in this article about the Organon episode references a primary source.
On several occasions you've criticized me for removing material instead of bringing it up on the talk page and seeking concensus. But then you unilaterally removed my additions without prior discussions. To me, it seems that the rule you are actually seeking to implement is that you have final say over what is included in the article. If you are unable to compromise here (The initial sentence you wanted has been left intact) I think it is time to seek mediation by a neutral 3rd party. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Alfred Bertheim ( talk • contribs) 17:28, 9 March 2013 (UTC)
The request may be viewed here. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Dispute_resolution_noticeboard#Pharmaceutical_Industry Talk Page. Albert Bertheim Talk page — Preceding unsigned comment added by Alfred Bertheim ( talk • contribs) 23:22, 9 March 2013 (UTC)
I am requesting mediation of my disagreement with SlimVirgin regarding paragraph 4 of the Controversies section of this article. I've added a summary of my position below, and expect that SlimVirgin will add a summary of her position as well.
I conclude that this entire paragraph as it currently stands is a violation of NPOV built up from original syntheses and the systematic efforts of certain editors to exclude information that provides a more neutral POV treatment of the events. Thank you for taking the time to review this. I will respect whatever decision is made by the mediators. Alfred Bertheim ( talk) 23:07, 9 March 2013 (UTC)
Dr. Koos Stiekema was was sued by the pharmaceutical company Organon for violating his confidentiality agreement after discussing his concerns that the lowest dose of the drug pentasaccharide being tested patients with acute coronary syndrome would not be sufficient to prevent myocardial infarctions with three ethics committees. Organon's other experts agreed that the trial design was safe, and a court awarded Organon ₤550,000 for the trial delay costs that resulted from Dr. Stiekema's disclosures. Organon conducted the trial according to the originally planned protocol and found that the dose that Dr. Stiekema opposed provided the maximum reduction in mortality among the four doses examined. [1] At the time of the original court decision, the British Medical Journal ran an article prominently referring to Dr. Stiekema as a "whistleblower", but the journal never commented on the trial results demonstrating superior efficacy for the dose that Dr. Stiekema had opposed. [2]
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I have a serious problem with this section of the text:
This is in no way neutral POV, when it manages to completely elide the fact that this is one of the largest and definitely one of the most profitable industries in the world, with revenues in the hundreds of billions and net incomes of twenty percent! There doesn't appear to be any discussion of these facts in a section that discusses the cost and difficulty of drug development. The cited source (a website) is argumentative and not of any particular academic or scholarly authority. This seems to me well below the standard of quality we should expect from Wikipedia. Graft | talk 22:35, 1 August 2013 (UTC)
Can we get information like - what is the cost of pharma industry today in the article ? Thanks. -- Abhijeet Safai ( talk) 10:08, 23 October 2013 (UTC)
It's definitely wrong and has been for a few years now, since lipitor went generic. The source if from '06... Maybe I'm blind but it doesn't appear to have been discussed even though the "dubious discuss" tag was added a year ago. so I'm going to go ahead an update that information to at least something relatively accurate.
Numerous sources have "humira" as the best selling drug world wide for 2013, although in the United States it seems Abilify and Nexium sell more. one source has Enbrel and Advair as the second and third top selling world wide, respectively. (although one source has Remicide in the number two position world wide.) Let me know if you see any issues with the final outcome Pharmaceutical_industry#Industry_revenues
DustBowlTroubadour ( talk) 09:10, 6 August 2014 (UTC)
Here's a report about profits in the pharmaceutical industry by the BBC. It discredits the claim that pharmaceutical companies spend most of their money developing drugs—the majority is actually spent in marketing. Maybe the article already covers all of this thoroughly, but in case it doesn't, I hope this link helps. – Maky « talk » 19:17, 6 November 2014 (UTC)
I've been looking over some of the changes to this article over the past year and several deletions jumped out at me as questionable:
I intend to replace most of those deletions unless there are policy or guideline-based reasons they should not be included. EllenCT ( talk) 22:09, 9 January 2015 (UTC)
Here's the list of specifics, with my thoughts:
That's my two cents. I'd maybe add a couple of these back in, but I think that most of the removals were probably good on balance. WhatamIdoing ( talk) 23:55, 11 January 2015 (UTC)
Thanks for your comments @ WhatamIdoing: and for taking the time to be so specific and thoughtful.
Formerly 98 ( talk) 16:18, 12 January 2015 (UTC)
Is this in the article? http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2015/01/not-just-banks-warren-sets-sights-big-pharma — Preceding unsigned comment added by SCW2015 ( talk • contribs) 16:13, 23 January 2015 (UTC)
While something along the lines of the section header is going too far, there is a kernel there that can be included in the article. Most pharmaceutical companies are for profit and develop drugs with that in mind. So important areas like vaccines and antibiotics are not a priority for most companies, in part because the returns are low relative to medications that treat chronic conditions. With Vaccines in mind, companies found ways to make what was relatively inexpensive, very expensive. I think this kind of thread could be properly handled without violating NPOV. Sample sources [7] and [8] [[[User:Mattnad|Mattnad]] ( talk) 12:11, 17 February 2015 (UTC)
I think a good model for an article on the pharmaceutical industry is this chapter from the U.S. Industrial Outlook 1994 [9] or [10] . This series, published by the Department of Commerce, was discontinued after 1994, but they used to produce good, concise reports on every industry. You could do worse than starting with this 1994 study and updating it. Of course, an article on the pharmaceutical industry in 2015 would be much different than an article in 1994, but many important basic concepts are the same. If you know of something better, I'd like to see it. The pharmaceutical industry (SIC 283) was Chapter 43, "Drugs". -- Nbauman ( talk) 11:56, 18 February 2015 (UTC)
(Transcluded from a user talk page for broader discussion by Formerly 98).
I read or skim about 10 of the major medical journals every week, so I could contribute with peer-reviewed sources, which to any normal person would be WP:RS. Here's one on industry influence on clinical trials.
http://archinte.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleID=1898873 Industry Collaboration and Randomized Clinical Trial Design and Outcomes Nitin Roper, Nasen Zhang, Deborah Korenstein JAMA Intern Med. 2014;174(10):1695-1696. doi:10.1001/jamainternmed.2014.3590
Here's another:
http://archinte.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=2109855 Research Misconduct Identified by the US Food and Drug Administration: Out of Sight, Out of Mind, Out of the Peer-Reviewed Literature Charles Seife, MS JAMA Intern Med. February 09, 2015. doi:10.1001/jamainternmed.2014.7774 [Free full text]
(Even though there was deliberate fraud, leading to prison for 1 investigator, which changed the conclusions of the results, the FDA didn't disclose that fraud to their own advisory committee members, nor did it correct the published conclusions based on that fraud, or publicly disclose the fraud so that the journals could correct the results. Seife lists the excuses the FDA gives for not disclosing fraud.)
Quote: That misconduct happens isn’t shocking. What is: When the FDA finds scientific fraud or misconduct, the agency doesn’t notify the public, the medical establishment, or even the scientific community that the results of a medical experiment are not to be trusted. On the contrary. For more than a decade, the FDA has shown a pattern of burying the details of misconduct. As a result, nobody ever finds out which data is bogus, which experiments are tainted, and which drugs might be on the market under false pretenses. The FDA has repeatedly hidden evidence of scientific fraud not just from the public, but also from its most trusted scientific advisers, even as they were deciding whether or not a new drug should be allowed on the market. Even a congressional panel investigating a case of fraud regarding a dangerous drug couldn't get forthright answers. For an agency devoted to protecting the public from bogus medical science, the FDA seems to be spending an awful lot of effort protecting the perpetrators of bogus science from the public
(This was also published in journalistic form in Slate:
http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/2015/02/fda_inspections_fraud_fabrication_and_scientific_misconduct_are_hidden_from.single.html Are Your Medications Safe? The FDA buries evidence of fraud in medical trials. My students and I dug it up. By Charles Seife Slate Feb. 9 2015)
These pro-industry edits are going against ongoing articles and mainstream opinion in all the major peer-reviewed journals. -- Nbauman ( talk) 23:04, 12 February 2015 (UTC)
The JAMA Internal Medicine article was quite interesting, if a bit disingenuous in a few places.
The paper is a bit misleading, I'm afraid, it states that "If onewere to exclude the data fromthe patients at that site, the claim of a statistically significant mortality benefit disappears. For this reason, among others, the FDA wrestled with whether it was appropriate to allow the manufacturer to claim a mortality benefit." This is at best an overstatement of the facts. The FDA immediately threw out all Chinese data from this trial because the person identified in the fraud (who was identified and reported by Bristol Myers) had a role in handling data from all Chinese sites. Reading the FDA approval summary, no one ever considered throwing out only the single site that got the negative inspection, and that is the only selection of trials that would have led to a non-statistically significant effect on survival.
The "wrestling" over the survival benefit was due to a reviewer who was not even assigned to the NDA team, chiming in and criticizing what he felt was inadequate follow-up of the patients from the trial. His criticisms are described first hand and in detail, the word "China" does not appear in his comments.
This is of course why primary research papers such as this one are not permitted by WP:MEDRS. The results need to be reviewed and put in context by uninvolved researchers.
Best,
Formerly 98 (
talk)
02:02, 13 February 2015 (UTC)
John, first let me apologize for engaging in an off-topic debate on the article Talk page. I have struck my remarks as we should limit ourselves to discussing improvements of the article here.
However, I must say that I disagree with your comment describing me as a "POV Editor". I began working on this article in October 2014. The amount of space dedicated to criticism of the industry before and after my edits is summarized in the table below. I've defined "criticism" very narrowly here and believe that this is a fair if not conservative representation.
Article Version | Total Text (Words) | "Criticism/negative" |
---|---|---|
October 2, 2014 | 6674 | 3201 (48%) |
Current | 6905 | 2268 (32%) |
For comparison, the Essay WP:CRIT recommends that "Generally, criticisms within an article (other than a "Criticism of ..." article) should in total be well under half of the article, even if sourcing supports filling almost every line of the article with criticism. The minimum is that required by neutrality but the maximum should, in a neutral way, leave a majority of the article as not criticism." According to this standard, the article has been moved from "seriously imbalanced" to something that is in the ballpark of Wikipedia standards.
Given this, I think it would be more productive to discuss individual edits than characterizing other editors as biased or POV warriors. In fact, I would appreciate it if you would strike your comment, which I believe is a violation of Wikipedia talk page guidelines (WP:TALKNO) or at least comes very close to being one. We all have different opinions, but bias is most obvious when it differs from one's own!
I do think we should be careful about piling on with more criticism of the industry given the stats in the Table above. A good choice from my POV would be to add substantative criticism while removing more trivial ones. Best, Formerly 98 ( talk) 14:50, 13 February 2015 (UTC)
I think my biggest concern has been the way in which the article as I found it several months ago appeared to be a WP:SOAPBOX to tell the world how shameful the pharmaceutical industry is. That's really not the purpose of Wikipedia. The problem was not just that the article was NNPOV, it was that like all heavy handed political screeds that beat their point into the ground telling people what they should think, it was BORING.
This industry has a complex history of having been engaged in some of the worst scandals of any industry, while simultaneously having generated products that reduced childhood mortality by 2/3s. Its a rich and complex history. Casting it as some sort of Evil Empire doesn't capture that complexity. That's what I've tried to capture in the sections that I have written, but I am only up to about 1970 or so in the history of the industry.
There is a lot of legitimate criticism and concern out there, but it needs to be described in a NPOV manner, which I think includes the following:
As an example of what I regard as problematic criticism, I would point to the Criticism of Coca Cola Company article which I have recently cut back. Some of the criticisms included there were
And so on. The existence of a reliable source is a minimum requirement for adding material to an article, but we don't add EVERYTHING for which we have a reliable source. The point is to write an informative, interesting, and balanced article. Formerly 98 ( talk) 14:29, 14 February 2015 (UTC)
I'd like to propose again that we have a separate page on Criticism of the pharmaceutical industry. In support of that, I just saw this page, New York City Police Department corruption and misconduct. It's customary in WP to have a separate page of criticism, when the criticism on the main page would get too long. It does not violate WP:POVFORK. The alternative that you're suggesting -- just delete the criticism when it gets too long -- would have the effect of deleting much of the criticism of the pharmaceutical industry, even when it's justified, in violation of WP:NPOV. -- Nbauman ( talk) 21:29, 14 March 2015 (UTC)
![]() | This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
I deleted the last sentence in the introduction. "The most sucessful and influential industries..." I have done research on the topic and cannot find any conclusive evidence of such facts. The only research I found, which seemed biased, suggested the pharmaceutical industry had profit margins of approximately 26% which does not seem accurate for many smaller companies. The deleted sentence could be true but to make such assertions about an industry the contributor should cite the source. Johnbushiii ( talk) 18:52, 8 April 2008 (UTC)
Based on my brief exploration of Wikipedia, I don't think the degree of bias in this article is typical of Wikipedia in general. There are key facts missing (e.g. in the discussion of AIDS drugs, no mention is made of the millions of dollars worth of medicine donated to African countries by the drug companies). If facts such as these were included, a more balanced article would result, but perhaps the author's agenda would not be served. I will try to find time to edit the most blatant portions of this article. 68.72.111.4 ( talk · contribs)
I edited some items. Thanks... btw, I wrote the first item on this discussion page.
I added a short note on Medicare Part D because of the size of the revenues associated with this program. CommodiCast 21:51, 9 October 2005 (UTC)
In the last few days I rearranged and added a number of sections. CommodiCast 20:28, 12 October 2005 (UTC)
I wonder if anyone else feel that the (very nice) sections on Drug discovery and development would be better placed in the articles of those names? There is a lot of duplication between those articles, this one, and the article on regulatory requirements. -- Dogbertd 09:42, 24 November 2005 (UTC)
Drugs don't grow in trees (well, some do) and need to be manufactured. There is a section missing on this subject, I think. Maybe I'll write it some day, including fermentation, chemical synthesis, outsourcing, etc. The pharmaceutical industry is quite wastefull compared to other chemical industry branches, but it has the best public image. Maybe I'll comment on this too.
Needs to be setup with the ISBN rather than a link to Amazon.com. This should be done or the books deleted. Cordially SirIsaacBrock 01:08, 20 January 2006 (UTC)
The article had stated that Sanofi-Aventis R&D spending was USD $9.3 billion. However the actual source (Source: Wendy Diller and Herman Saftlas, "Healthcare: Pharmaceuticals," Standard & Poor’s Industry Surveys, 22 December 2005, 13) for these figure list Sanofi-Aventis as spending USD $3.9 for R&D. Since this is most likely a typo, I have corrected the error.
The bullet point that begins, "From 1980 to 1997..." should have a citation for the statistics given concerning favorable study results. In addition, the last two sentences could use either some documentation or an external link. I'm not trying to dispute the points one way or the other, but a reference would be especially informative, given its location in the controversy section.
In the Drug Discovery section, I am not sure, but are those just cut and paste quotations from another site? Sorry for not delving into it at the moment, but it seems like that should be addressed. Perhaps by rewording and creating new text or by at least a more clear recognition of the source. As it is, they are in quotes, but by the paragraph and barely noticeable. Sorry for just complaining and not doing anything about it. Let me know if I'm off on this, otherwise I'll eventually get around to putting myt money where my mouth is and addressing it myself. -- Gbinal 10:08, 10 April 2006 (UTC)
There is another copyvio in the discussion of industry sales; a sentence is lifted straight from Forbes magazine. I was just looking for figures when I noticed it. I will get to it soon. Academic38 ( talk) 09:15, 11 December 2008 (UTC)
I've given this article a bit of an overhaul. Expanded the history section. Tried to rationalise all the different levels of headings. Integrated the disparate points collected under 'controversy' in to the topics to which they refer. Added some new bits and pieces. EverSince 22:29, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
In the table of companies by 2008 sales there is a mistake. GSK and Novartis have been given the same sales figure by mistake. The sales (in M$) for Novartis should be 36,172. (
Andyfinlay (
talk)
19:06, 10 January 2010 (UTC))
This article blends the concept of the entire pharmaceutical industry into the idea of the single company. I don't think that is particularly useful. These two topics have distinct uses, especially when it comes time to pick an appropriate internal link for another Wiki article. For example, a company that manufactures plastic bottles of use to both the pharmaceutical industry and beverage industry is better linked to the pharm industry link, while a drug company in NJ or its CEO is better linked to the pharm company link. A city that has a great number of pharmaceutical companies within its borders should link to pharm companies, while an association that represents the pharm industry has a broader "industry" nature. Such a distinction between industry and firms would allow for development of more sophisticated discussions within Wiki, such as 1)how the industry as a whole deals with the AIDS crisis or lobbying in Washington, DC, versus 2) where individual companies are located, who works for them, and maybe some microeconomic issues like liability, advertising, local government regulation, and hiring. This seems to be an issue on many industries, such as ceramics industry, food and beverage industry, et al. I've been working on the plastics industry myself. Pat 22:18, 13 May 2007 (UTC)
There are too many sub-sections with only a few sentences, these should be expanded or (preferably) consolidated. Also, many of the sections should link to main articles (if they exist) or split into new articles. For instance, "From drug discovery to market" should link to the separate articles on "Drug Discovery" and "Drug Development". The overall arc of the article should also be rethought. The introduction could use a little more substance. History is a good start to the main body of the article, but there is no logical order to the sections that follow. Criticisms should generally be worked into the article where appropriate, and not given their own section unless there is nowhere else to put them. More specific topics should be placed at the end of the article. I apologize for not implementing these suggestions myself; maybe when I have more time. AAMiller 22:01, 6 August 2007 (UTC)
i think tat kevin trudeau, being an important part of the pharmceutical company criticism organizations, belongs as a see-also reference on the phrmarceutical company talkpage. the editors who have revered my edits have given no reason why apart from their possible prersonal dislike of Mr. Trudeau's work and i dontthitnk that sa valid reason to violate wikipedia: NPOV. and otehr guidelines protecting wikipedia from bias. Smith Jones ( talk) 00:31, 10 January 2008 (UTC) Smith Jones ( talk) 00:31, 10 January 2008 (UTC) Smith Jones ( talk) 00:31, 10 January 2008 (UTC)
Smith Jones you said "MR. Trudeau's presitigous name" in one of your edit summaries. How is his name prestigious? According to the article on him "On November 19, 2007, he was found in contempt of court again for "patently false" claims in his weight loss book" and "The FTC currently restricts his ability to promote and sell any product or service." "Trudeau has criminal convictions in the early 1990s for fraud and larceny." It seems that all he is really notable for is his products which he is not allowed to sell. Somehow I don't think the words of a convcited fellow who was convicted for crimes in this area (false claims about health products) are reliable. Also seeing as it is currently illegal for him to promote his products within the United States (where he is a citizen) it seems inappropriate to reference any source in which he does that in an article that is not about him or his products. I think the comment should be removed entirely. JamesStewart7 ( talk) 05:53, 10 January 2008 (UTC)
I have proposed that this article be moved to Pharmaceutical industry. We can then write a short article instead of this for "Pharmaceutical company". See comments above at #Pharmaceutical_Industry_vs_Company. Eric Kvaalen ( talk) 08:56, 7 September 2008 (UTC)
I just thought its wierd that theres not a presence of the opposition of the modern pharm industry,like treating only symptoms and not looking into permanent cures, and their being the one who got most drugs illegal and that kinda thing. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.231.239.8 ( talk) 08:20, 29 November 2008 (UTC)
= == Pharmaunternehmen
Wann gibt es schlechte Nachrichten für die Pharmaindustrie
Where is Teva in the list of top companies by revenue, on the Teva wikipedia page it says the revenue was 11 billion, and I can't see the company in the list on this page. Is it a mistake? Can some one edit the list? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 132.68.249.235 ( talk) 23:11, 24 January 2010 (UTC)
Make its own article or include something in here? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.29.121.91 ( talk) 00:40, 31 July 2010 (UTC)
How do one identify the pharmaceutical products and taking into account the input-transformational-output 41.191.104.250 ( talk) 20:04, 15 February 2011 (UTC)model.
The entire section on R&D is very biased, really needs to be redone. Neosiber ( talk) 23:31, 30 April 2011 (UTC)
jkjl lkjlk kj;lk j;lkj — Preceding unsigned comment added by 41.95.14.101 ( talk) 04:32, 26 November 2011 (UTC)
This has been mentioned before. It seems a major omission to have no information on drug manufacturing processes. There are a few related articles dotted around, so perhaps at least a links section could be created to, for example: Validation_(drug_manufacture); Good_Manufacturing_Practices; Tablet#Manufacturing; Spheronisation; Tablet_press; etc.
Jpedant ( talk) 23:58, 18 November 2011 (UTC)
I added the origens of the word pharmaceutical. 2602:306:C518:62C0:1E75:8FF:FEBB:2125 ( talk) 06:15, 17 July 2012 (UTC)
This can be variously described as non-neutral POV or as unsupported by any citation from a reliable source. The first citation describes a case in which from the company's point of view, was not a lawsuit for "revealing ethical issues" but for breaking a confidentiality agreement. In fact, the court ruled in the company's favor. One could reasonably include this item in the article as an example of a lawsuit against a physician employee who claimed to have ethical concerns, but balance would also require stating that the lawsuit was filed for violation of a confidentiality contract, and that a neutral court ruled in the company's favor. You can't just present the defendant's version of the story, especially when a competent court has reviewed the case and ruled against him.
The second citation includes no examples of individuals being sued by a pharmaceutical company. So it is completely irrelevant to the statement that cites it as support.
As a minor aside, both articles are news stories written by journal editors, not scientific papers, so neither is peer reviewed. Alfred Bertheim ( talk) 04:34, 4 March 2013 (UTC)
Respectfully Alfred Bertheim ( talk) —Preceding undated comment added 17:16, 4 March 2013 (UTC)
Hi Alfred, I see you restored some of this again. Is the source a secondary source? SlimVirgin (talk) 17:00, 9 March 2013 (UTC)
Organon conducted the trial according to the originally planned protocol and found that the dose that Dr. Stiekema opposed provided the same reduction in mortality as the other three doses examined. [1]
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Hi Slim,
Primary sources are permitted when they serve to source factual material. Indeed, every statement in this article about the Organon episode references a primary source.
On several occasions you've criticized me for removing material instead of bringing it up on the talk page and seeking concensus. But then you unilaterally removed my additions without prior discussions. To me, it seems that the rule you are actually seeking to implement is that you have final say over what is included in the article. If you are unable to compromise here (The initial sentence you wanted has been left intact) I think it is time to seek mediation by a neutral 3rd party. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Alfred Bertheim ( talk • contribs) 17:28, 9 March 2013 (UTC)
The request may be viewed here. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Dispute_resolution_noticeboard#Pharmaceutical_Industry Talk Page. Albert Bertheim Talk page — Preceding unsigned comment added by Alfred Bertheim ( talk • contribs) 23:22, 9 March 2013 (UTC)
I am requesting mediation of my disagreement with SlimVirgin regarding paragraph 4 of the Controversies section of this article. I've added a summary of my position below, and expect that SlimVirgin will add a summary of her position as well.
I conclude that this entire paragraph as it currently stands is a violation of NPOV built up from original syntheses and the systematic efforts of certain editors to exclude information that provides a more neutral POV treatment of the events. Thank you for taking the time to review this. I will respect whatever decision is made by the mediators. Alfred Bertheim ( talk) 23:07, 9 March 2013 (UTC)
Dr. Koos Stiekema was was sued by the pharmaceutical company Organon for violating his confidentiality agreement after discussing his concerns that the lowest dose of the drug pentasaccharide being tested patients with acute coronary syndrome would not be sufficient to prevent myocardial infarctions with three ethics committees. Organon's other experts agreed that the trial design was safe, and a court awarded Organon ₤550,000 for the trial delay costs that resulted from Dr. Stiekema's disclosures. Organon conducted the trial according to the originally planned protocol and found that the dose that Dr. Stiekema opposed provided the maximum reduction in mortality among the four doses examined. [1] At the time of the original court decision, the British Medical Journal ran an article prominently referring to Dr. Stiekema as a "whistleblower", but the journal never commented on the trial results demonstrating superior efficacy for the dose that Dr. Stiekema had opposed. [2]
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I have a serious problem with this section of the text:
This is in no way neutral POV, when it manages to completely elide the fact that this is one of the largest and definitely one of the most profitable industries in the world, with revenues in the hundreds of billions and net incomes of twenty percent! There doesn't appear to be any discussion of these facts in a section that discusses the cost and difficulty of drug development. The cited source (a website) is argumentative and not of any particular academic or scholarly authority. This seems to me well below the standard of quality we should expect from Wikipedia. Graft | talk 22:35, 1 August 2013 (UTC)
Can we get information like - what is the cost of pharma industry today in the article ? Thanks. -- Abhijeet Safai ( talk) 10:08, 23 October 2013 (UTC)
It's definitely wrong and has been for a few years now, since lipitor went generic. The source if from '06... Maybe I'm blind but it doesn't appear to have been discussed even though the "dubious discuss" tag was added a year ago. so I'm going to go ahead an update that information to at least something relatively accurate.
Numerous sources have "humira" as the best selling drug world wide for 2013, although in the United States it seems Abilify and Nexium sell more. one source has Enbrel and Advair as the second and third top selling world wide, respectively. (although one source has Remicide in the number two position world wide.) Let me know if you see any issues with the final outcome Pharmaceutical_industry#Industry_revenues
DustBowlTroubadour ( talk) 09:10, 6 August 2014 (UTC)
Here's a report about profits in the pharmaceutical industry by the BBC. It discredits the claim that pharmaceutical companies spend most of their money developing drugs—the majority is actually spent in marketing. Maybe the article already covers all of this thoroughly, but in case it doesn't, I hope this link helps. – Maky « talk » 19:17, 6 November 2014 (UTC)
I've been looking over some of the changes to this article over the past year and several deletions jumped out at me as questionable:
I intend to replace most of those deletions unless there are policy or guideline-based reasons they should not be included. EllenCT ( talk) 22:09, 9 January 2015 (UTC)
Here's the list of specifics, with my thoughts:
That's my two cents. I'd maybe add a couple of these back in, but I think that most of the removals were probably good on balance. WhatamIdoing ( talk) 23:55, 11 January 2015 (UTC)
Thanks for your comments @ WhatamIdoing: and for taking the time to be so specific and thoughtful.
Formerly 98 ( talk) 16:18, 12 January 2015 (UTC)
Is this in the article? http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2015/01/not-just-banks-warren-sets-sights-big-pharma — Preceding unsigned comment added by SCW2015 ( talk • contribs) 16:13, 23 January 2015 (UTC)
While something along the lines of the section header is going too far, there is a kernel there that can be included in the article. Most pharmaceutical companies are for profit and develop drugs with that in mind. So important areas like vaccines and antibiotics are not a priority for most companies, in part because the returns are low relative to medications that treat chronic conditions. With Vaccines in mind, companies found ways to make what was relatively inexpensive, very expensive. I think this kind of thread could be properly handled without violating NPOV. Sample sources [7] and [8] [[[User:Mattnad|Mattnad]] ( talk) 12:11, 17 February 2015 (UTC)
I think a good model for an article on the pharmaceutical industry is this chapter from the U.S. Industrial Outlook 1994 [9] or [10] . This series, published by the Department of Commerce, was discontinued after 1994, but they used to produce good, concise reports on every industry. You could do worse than starting with this 1994 study and updating it. Of course, an article on the pharmaceutical industry in 2015 would be much different than an article in 1994, but many important basic concepts are the same. If you know of something better, I'd like to see it. The pharmaceutical industry (SIC 283) was Chapter 43, "Drugs". -- Nbauman ( talk) 11:56, 18 February 2015 (UTC)
(Transcluded from a user talk page for broader discussion by Formerly 98).
I read or skim about 10 of the major medical journals every week, so I could contribute with peer-reviewed sources, which to any normal person would be WP:RS. Here's one on industry influence on clinical trials.
http://archinte.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleID=1898873 Industry Collaboration and Randomized Clinical Trial Design and Outcomes Nitin Roper, Nasen Zhang, Deborah Korenstein JAMA Intern Med. 2014;174(10):1695-1696. doi:10.1001/jamainternmed.2014.3590
Here's another:
http://archinte.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=2109855 Research Misconduct Identified by the US Food and Drug Administration: Out of Sight, Out of Mind, Out of the Peer-Reviewed Literature Charles Seife, MS JAMA Intern Med. February 09, 2015. doi:10.1001/jamainternmed.2014.7774 [Free full text]
(Even though there was deliberate fraud, leading to prison for 1 investigator, which changed the conclusions of the results, the FDA didn't disclose that fraud to their own advisory committee members, nor did it correct the published conclusions based on that fraud, or publicly disclose the fraud so that the journals could correct the results. Seife lists the excuses the FDA gives for not disclosing fraud.)
Quote: That misconduct happens isn’t shocking. What is: When the FDA finds scientific fraud or misconduct, the agency doesn’t notify the public, the medical establishment, or even the scientific community that the results of a medical experiment are not to be trusted. On the contrary. For more than a decade, the FDA has shown a pattern of burying the details of misconduct. As a result, nobody ever finds out which data is bogus, which experiments are tainted, and which drugs might be on the market under false pretenses. The FDA has repeatedly hidden evidence of scientific fraud not just from the public, but also from its most trusted scientific advisers, even as they were deciding whether or not a new drug should be allowed on the market. Even a congressional panel investigating a case of fraud regarding a dangerous drug couldn't get forthright answers. For an agency devoted to protecting the public from bogus medical science, the FDA seems to be spending an awful lot of effort protecting the perpetrators of bogus science from the public
(This was also published in journalistic form in Slate:
http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/2015/02/fda_inspections_fraud_fabrication_and_scientific_misconduct_are_hidden_from.single.html Are Your Medications Safe? The FDA buries evidence of fraud in medical trials. My students and I dug it up. By Charles Seife Slate Feb. 9 2015)
These pro-industry edits are going against ongoing articles and mainstream opinion in all the major peer-reviewed journals. -- Nbauman ( talk) 23:04, 12 February 2015 (UTC)
The JAMA Internal Medicine article was quite interesting, if a bit disingenuous in a few places.
The paper is a bit misleading, I'm afraid, it states that "If onewere to exclude the data fromthe patients at that site, the claim of a statistically significant mortality benefit disappears. For this reason, among others, the FDA wrestled with whether it was appropriate to allow the manufacturer to claim a mortality benefit." This is at best an overstatement of the facts. The FDA immediately threw out all Chinese data from this trial because the person identified in the fraud (who was identified and reported by Bristol Myers) had a role in handling data from all Chinese sites. Reading the FDA approval summary, no one ever considered throwing out only the single site that got the negative inspection, and that is the only selection of trials that would have led to a non-statistically significant effect on survival.
The "wrestling" over the survival benefit was due to a reviewer who was not even assigned to the NDA team, chiming in and criticizing what he felt was inadequate follow-up of the patients from the trial. His criticisms are described first hand and in detail, the word "China" does not appear in his comments.
This is of course why primary research papers such as this one are not permitted by WP:MEDRS. The results need to be reviewed and put in context by uninvolved researchers.
Best,
Formerly 98 (
talk)
02:02, 13 February 2015 (UTC)
John, first let me apologize for engaging in an off-topic debate on the article Talk page. I have struck my remarks as we should limit ourselves to discussing improvements of the article here.
However, I must say that I disagree with your comment describing me as a "POV Editor". I began working on this article in October 2014. The amount of space dedicated to criticism of the industry before and after my edits is summarized in the table below. I've defined "criticism" very narrowly here and believe that this is a fair if not conservative representation.
Article Version | Total Text (Words) | "Criticism/negative" |
---|---|---|
October 2, 2014 | 6674 | 3201 (48%) |
Current | 6905 | 2268 (32%) |
For comparison, the Essay WP:CRIT recommends that "Generally, criticisms within an article (other than a "Criticism of ..." article) should in total be well under half of the article, even if sourcing supports filling almost every line of the article with criticism. The minimum is that required by neutrality but the maximum should, in a neutral way, leave a majority of the article as not criticism." According to this standard, the article has been moved from "seriously imbalanced" to something that is in the ballpark of Wikipedia standards.
Given this, I think it would be more productive to discuss individual edits than characterizing other editors as biased or POV warriors. In fact, I would appreciate it if you would strike your comment, which I believe is a violation of Wikipedia talk page guidelines (WP:TALKNO) or at least comes very close to being one. We all have different opinions, but bias is most obvious when it differs from one's own!
I do think we should be careful about piling on with more criticism of the industry given the stats in the Table above. A good choice from my POV would be to add substantative criticism while removing more trivial ones. Best, Formerly 98 ( talk) 14:50, 13 February 2015 (UTC)
I think my biggest concern has been the way in which the article as I found it several months ago appeared to be a WP:SOAPBOX to tell the world how shameful the pharmaceutical industry is. That's really not the purpose of Wikipedia. The problem was not just that the article was NNPOV, it was that like all heavy handed political screeds that beat their point into the ground telling people what they should think, it was BORING.
This industry has a complex history of having been engaged in some of the worst scandals of any industry, while simultaneously having generated products that reduced childhood mortality by 2/3s. Its a rich and complex history. Casting it as some sort of Evil Empire doesn't capture that complexity. That's what I've tried to capture in the sections that I have written, but I am only up to about 1970 or so in the history of the industry.
There is a lot of legitimate criticism and concern out there, but it needs to be described in a NPOV manner, which I think includes the following:
As an example of what I regard as problematic criticism, I would point to the Criticism of Coca Cola Company article which I have recently cut back. Some of the criticisms included there were
And so on. The existence of a reliable source is a minimum requirement for adding material to an article, but we don't add EVERYTHING for which we have a reliable source. The point is to write an informative, interesting, and balanced article. Formerly 98 ( talk) 14:29, 14 February 2015 (UTC)
I'd like to propose again that we have a separate page on Criticism of the pharmaceutical industry. In support of that, I just saw this page, New York City Police Department corruption and misconduct. It's customary in WP to have a separate page of criticism, when the criticism on the main page would get too long. It does not violate WP:POVFORK. The alternative that you're suggesting -- just delete the criticism when it gets too long -- would have the effect of deleting much of the criticism of the pharmaceutical industry, even when it's justified, in violation of WP:NPOV. -- Nbauman ( talk) 21:29, 14 March 2015 (UTC)