THE YAWNING GAP BETWEEN PHARMA COMPANIES AND ITS CUSTOMERS
You probably didn't think about this...
IT’S A ONE-WAY SYSTEM
This diagram below represents how pharma customers (aka patients) are left by pharma companies to fend for themselves.
On the left-hand side, we see what is now known as the ‘manufacturer’.
That in itself is a distortion of the truth never corrected by pharma companies. They must have been given a license to sell their products, and as such, they are much more than ‘the manufacturer’—they are totally responsible for everything that goes on in the supply chain to market; also, they are responsible for post-approval monitoring of safety and running what are known as Phase IV clinical studies.
In practice, once the pharma company sells its product to wholesalers, they wipe their hands of it and leave it to its own devices, circulating around the healthcare system.
It’s a one-way only system.
THAT’S NOT THE END OF HAND-WIPING
In nearly all case, the pharma company didn’t actually develop or manufacture the product itself. They left it to contract development and manufactu…