ALL WORKERS MILITANT FRONT (W.F.T.U. Affiliate)
E-mail
:international@pamehellas.gr http://www.pamehellas.gr
Some data for the role of multinationals in medicine
The sector of medicine exemplifies the capitalist development path, the
monopolies’ dictatorship and the negative consequences of this on people’s
lives.
The "medicine” commodity and the development of multinational colossuses
- The U.S. and
U.K. produce the 78% of the world medicines production. The massive
production and the use of new drugs and vaccines led the pharmaceutical
companies into a powerful position thus gaining enormous wealth from the
rapid growth and sale of their products. Human health is referred as "the
most profitable commercial investment”.
- In the
nineties, the commercialization of genetic technologies led to massive
upheavals in the sectors of seeds, agrochemicals, and drugs as well the
emergence of colossuses, the "life sciences”, such as the Monsanto and the
pharmaceutical company Novartis. Today, the new technologies of synthetic
biology are connected to a new wave of mergers, acquisitions and
partnerships within the framework of the economy of biomass with the
colossuses of energy and chemicals such as Dow, DuPont, Shell and Exxon.
Chevron and Total have signed
strategic alliances with the colossuses of seeds, logging and grain
such as Monsanto, Cargill, Bunge, Weyerhaeuser and ADM. In the heart of
these alliances are the new companies of synthetic biology such as Life
Technologies Inc, Amyris, Solazyme and Evolva that are being promoted to
major roles in the sectors of food, energy, medicines and chemicals.
Financial Data – Profitability
- Among the 500
most profitable multinational companies on the planet, the 10 richest
pharmaceutical companies hold the top positions. It has been reported that
their earnings exceed the sum of the profits of the remaining 490,an
amount that it reaches the 40 billion dollars.
- Every year,
the pharmaceutical companies spend globally up to 11 billion dollars for
the promotion of their products.
- They annually
spend - mainly from the so-called developed countries of the Western World
– trillions of dollars and euros on new research, applications and methods
in medicine that multinationals are exploiting in the final stage of
production and supply in order to reap huge profits.
- The percentage
of the 10 largest companies in the world that is spent on research and
development is 11% - 14% while they spend for the supply of their products
and the administrative costs 35% of their revenues on average and not on
the production of the products.
- The close
relationship between doctors and pharmaceutical companies has a direct
effect on prescribing and polypharmacy. From the 11 billion dollars that
are spent every year for the promotion of their products, they give 5,5
billion as benefits to doctors through medical salespeople. It is
estimated that every year an amount from 8.000 to 13.000 euro has been
spent per doctor in every country of the world!
- The pharmaceutical companies overcharge the raw
materials (transfers services)
usually in Cypriot companies, with which they share the price difference.
- A British
multinational of medicine has its computing centers in India while it
makes charges for the use of computing centers and software which are the
same for all EU countries. So, if a country exchanges information with
another country it will not show the difference, although in many cases
these charges should be 3-4 times lower.
Profits of the 7 largest pharmaceutical companies on the planet in 2011
and the variation of the profits compared to 2009
|
Position in the list of the 500 largest companies in
the world
|
Percentage change in profits between 2011/2009
|
Phizer
|
104
|
-4.4%
|
Novartis
|
164
|
16.6%
|
GSK
|
194
|
-70%
|
Sanofi – Aventis
|
187
|
-1.1%
|
Bayer
|
178
|
-8.8%
|
AZ
|
281
|
7.1%
|
Eli Lilly
|
423
|
17.1%
|
Profit is a sole criterion – the needs and the right of peoples to medicine
are set aside
The multinationals of medicine can control internationally the health
care systems, they can prevent the independent production and chemical or natural
drug use, claiming their "intellectual property” on the "patentability” of
their chemical formulations.
- The EU through
the "Free Trade Agreement” (FTA) that proposes in India, it seeks to
inhibit the India’s generic drug companies from making drugs at extremely
low prices – that are aimed at serving the needs of the poorest people –
with the pretext and the judicial vesting requirement of patent rights
from the multinational pharmaceutical companies – colossuses. Pressure for
the achievement of the "Free trade Agreement” exerts the multinational
pharmaceutical Novartis, which asserts intellectual property rights for a
modified anticancer drug. In N.Delhi there were protests against this
agreement but the Western media concealed the issue.
- In May 2010,
thousand of diabetics in Greece remained "hostage” to the Nova Nordisk
company due to the withdrawal of 17 products with its representatives
invoking the "dramatic reduction” in prices. A few months ago,
multinational drug companies refused to provide hospital with anti-cancer
drugs unless they were paid in cash. Roche Hellas S.A. suspended the
supply of NHS hospitals with pharmaceutical products, that were
manufactured and imported in Greece exclusively by this company, products
that are necessary to combat and treat serious diseases such as cancer
(Herceptin, Avastin, Xeloda),. They justified their decision by saying that
the payment terms and the prompt repayments of the debts by hospitals and
funds were not applied.
- The Britain
company Glaxo Smith Kline and the Swiss Roche work with the European
authorities on emergency plans concerning the supply with specific drugs
in case Greece returns to the Drachma.
- Companies such
as: Bayer Hellas S.A., Leo Pharma Hellas S.A., Abbot Hellas S.A., Nycomed
Hellas S.A. and Novartis S.A. act in parallel, they made unilaterally
changes, for the worse, of the terms of their credit policy towards
pharmaceutical wholesalers, suspending the so far granted credit for the
payment of their invoices, establishing either a cash payment or even
payment by remittance in advance.
The labour "paradise” of multinationals of medicine
- In May 2010, the
multinational pharmaceutical companies in Greece proceeded to dismissals
of the 25% of their workers without any reduction in drug prices or
imposed any significant change in the Memorandum I. Reduction of workforce
are also made globally (PFIZER, ROCHE).
- The
multinational company Bristol Myers Squibb proceeded to dismissals of 55
workers this summer while simultaneously it closes the medicine sector in
the Greek market.
The "humanism” and "sensitivity”
·
In 1984, in Bhopal,
India, toxic smog of methylisocyanate gas was leaked from the American factory
Union Carbide which manufactured batteries and cheap Indian workers were
employed. 20.000 people died and unknown number has suffered since then. In
October of 2011, we learned that the victims who survived and supposedly were
treated at the Bhopal Memorial Hospital and Research Center, have become
unknowingly "Guinea Pigs” upon which multinational pharmaceutical companies
test their new drugs, specifically Astra Zeneka. Its representative admitted
publicly in a very diplomatic way "In this place of India wasn’t taken in an
appropriate manner the consent of patients”. Of course, all this process is
being done in exchange for money received by the hospital at the expense of the
oblivious patents. This hospital which was built with money as compensation
from Union Carbide and supposedly that it would be specialized in high quality
treatments to the victims who survived and for research on the long-term
consequences in fact was conducted clinical drug trials on 215 patients who
were unknowingly victims of the 1984 disaster. According to data that have been
adduced to the competent Indian authorities from civil organizations, 3
patients died as a result of the trials: Fondaparinux (cardiology), Tigicycline
(gastrointestinal surgery) and Televansin (anesthesiology).
·
In 2008, the UN with the way that reacts when
it comes to powerful, "highlighted” – but did nothing –, that multinational
companies have moved a preponderance of clinical drug trials in India that are
designated for the European and American market. The powerful Union of Chambers
of Commerce of India mentions that the country received more than 1 billion
dollars in 2010 through the clinical drug trials on people in comparison to the
200 million that it was in 2009.
·
Last year, the
official government of Nigeria filed a lawsuit against the pharmaceutical
company Pfizer, asking to be given the amount of 7 billion dollars for
experimental drug trials that the company made 11 years ago, in approximately
200 children who were suffered from meningitis. Intermediaries were the
"Doctors without borders”. Most of the children who were treated with the
experimental antibiotic Trovan presented various and severe side effects such
as deafness, vision loss, paralysis, severe brain damage while some of them
were died.
Competition and profitability at the expense of the
quality of medicine and health – what does "cheap medicine” mean, when this is
in the hands of multinationals?
- Five foreign
generic companies, Actavis from
Iceland, Mylan and Watson from US , Teva from Israel and Randaxy from India wait on the
corner the decision for "prescribing with the active substance” and the cheapest drug choice so as to
enter to the generic market in Greece and get a slice of the cake.
- Teva specializes in the production of very cheap
medicines. It is characteristic that
it produces active substance in its factories in India, China, Israel,
Puerto Rico and Mexico. The same Israeli company has repeatedly
preoccupied the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) that has found even impure drugs in its
factories in a number of cases! Inadequate checks, impurities, black
participles of unknown origin, cancellation of checks with negative
results and their replacement by other more "convenient”, inadequate
scientific studies, pollutions and tangles during the production of
medicines, inadequate cleaning of the equipment, these are just some of
the findings of FDA’s checks in Teva’s factories. Indeed, the gravity
of the findings was such that the US authorities proceeded even to the
closure of the company in Missouri, USA!
The improper corruption in
medicine, as a result of the multinational’s operating activities
·
A high-level
executive of the pharmaceutical company DePuy International, a subsidiary of
the American colossus Johnson and Johnson, admitted before a British court that
it "gave” more than 5 million euros to executives of Greek hospitals as an
"incentive” for its company’s preference to orthopedic types supplies. Always,
according to the same reports, the sales
in Greece were made through the Medec S.A. company and the sweetener payments
were made to the offshore subsidiary account of the Madison Management Ltd
Company. The average commission was formed at the 23% of the actual value of
the product, however in some cases it reached the 100%. As the high level
company executive testified characteristically, who was convicted, in 2002 the
prosthetic knee that the company was traded, cost 4.400 for the Greek state in
comparison to 2.200 euros that was the cost for other European countries.
·
According to the
report of the newspaper "Proto thema”, the Under-secretary of Health, who was
placed in this position with the recommendation of Democratic Left (DIMAR), requested with her letter of 24 August
2012 to proceed "immediately” with the issuing of the direct award for the
order reagents for the checking of blood units for the West Nile Virus (WNV).
The strange thing with this commission is not only its rate, as it reaches the
staggering amount of 1.2 million euro, according to the report of "Proto
Thema”, but more the fact that the Under-secretary asks to award the order to a
particular multinational company and that there is no real reason for this
supply, because due to the actions of the Deputy Secretary they had already
ensured 20.000 free checks from another company!
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