Mals Musings: Improving lives or improving profits?
/The public has turned on the financial sector for caring more about profits than about people. Is the pharma industry next?/
By on Jan 21, 2010The public has turned on the financial sector for caring more about profits than about people. Is the pharma industry next?
Imagine this scenario: The executive leaves home in the morning to go to work, knowing that what she does daily adds value to real lives and is appreciated by customers and the public alike. Is this true of pharma executives? I think not. Why are executives in an industry dedicated to saving and improving lives so disliked? It is time to uncover the root of the unfavourable perception we have.
What do we do? We try on a daily basis to seek ways to improve patients lives by ensuring appropriate treatments reach them through a cost-effective model. As a result, we aim to generate revenue that will allow continuous investment in solutions for future medical challenges. How can anyone begrudge organisations and executives that work in this mode? They cannot. But do we really work in this way? The last few decades have led to a significant increase in investment in our industry. However, this has been coupled with increased pressure to match the returns achieved in other sectors. Now we are trying to outperform other sectors in terms of financial returns we can deliver to the City. As a result, life-changing scientists have become aggressive brokers, and the concept of partnering with a physician is a role we perform from a distance.
Today we are viewed as wolves in sheeps clothing and the public can see the resemblance between us and City brokers. Is this a fair assessment? After all, we save and improve lives on a daily basis, so surely the end justifies the means. It must be due to a lack of understanding of the value that we deliver. If only they knew how many lives we save and improve and the relative cost ratios.
There is some truth in these arguments, although we miss the big picture. Part of the reason why we fail to communicate this value successfully is because we are too busy competing like soda drinks companies. In addition, and more importantly, the public sense correctly that over the last few decades our emphasis has moved from improving lives to improving profits. The value that we want to communicate has now become a by-product of our real aim. In most sectors, this is an acceptable situation. But what we do is so integral and important to survival and life that we are not afforded the flexibility that the oil industry enjoys, for example.
Of a great concern to us should have been the way the public has totally turned on the financial sector despite the pivotal role they play in the survival of our capitalist world. Now the industry is being held accountable and are being scrutinised for everything from remuneration to expenses. Are we next?
In future, we will have to make our arguments to the payer and public rather than the physician. The cosy arrangement we had with physicians is being brought to an abrupt end, and rightly so. This is an industry that has a stronger case for adding value to society than most. However, we have got ourselves into a muddle and we are treated with similar suspicions as banks. Our current orientation affects the talent we attract, the culture we cultivate and the way we operate. And we cannot talk ourselves out of it. We need to behave ourselves out of it.
It is time to get back to our origins. Yes, we have benefited from our increased commercial awareness but the loss of our social responsibility has been a price too high to pay. Our world is increasingly demanding organisations with ethics and social responsibility. We should consider the fact that we are largely funded by pension funds and the majority of the money in pension funds is owned by the elderly population. Coincidentally, the elderly are our main end users. We had better accept and appreciate this fact before the elderly do. The pressure is already on for us to clean up and get back to basics. We do it or we will suffer the consequences. There is no such thing as an insulated industry anymore. Like others, we have to remain loyal to the manifesto that made our industry great. Yes, time, technology and processes have evolved. But we must remember why we exist and what we do. Now is the time to get out of the sleek suits and back into the white coats symbolic of the carers we represent.