A tale of how the pharma system was broken—and how Pfizer et al turned it toxic!
It ain't pretty....
I witnessed the whole thing
[Note: detail is provided in the exhibits at the end, for those who wish to dig deeper]
In the 40+ years I've spent working in the pharmaceutical industry, I've been witness to a spiral of decline that sent my jaw to the ground. When I entered the industry in 1980, large pharmaceutical companies dominated the landscape. They owned just about everything required to develop, manufacture, test and distribute medicinal products for sale.
In the mid 1980s, those large pharmaceutical companies began to dismantle themselves, in the hope of unloading the risks associated with drug development, while keeping the $$$s rolling in.
What comes next is the pivotal event that started it all.
The battle that gave birth to the blockbuster era
In November 1976, Smith Kline & French (SK&F) launched Tagamet, a drug to combat stomach ulcers. It quickly took off and was dubbed the world’s first ‘blockbuster’ drug (≥ $1 Bn annual sales).
Glaxo launched a competitor product, Zantac, in 1…