The pharmaceutical companies are strictly regulated and constantly monitored by the appropriate regulatory bodies, it is still in our best interest if we all understand their social responsibilities towards society today.
Upholding these responsibilities excellently requires that all levels, where needed, are met with professionalism and excellence.
For starters, pharmaceutical companies must ensure that the drugs they manufacture are thoroughly researched by well-vetted individuals and groups.
With this article, I will enlighten you and we can explore the social responsibilities and roles that pharmaceutical companies are expected to assume in society.
Overview of the social responsibility of pharmaceutical companies
Pharmaceutical companies invest a large sum in search of new cures for illnesses and treatment method options.
The money is appropriately spent to ensure proper implementation and that extensive research goes into testing and drug development.
Aside from the financial aspect of these responsibilities, more activities are put in place to help oversee the success of these projects.
So, while profit may seem more critical due to the amount spent on drug testing, manufacturing, distribution, and marketing, it is crucial to focus on the bigger picture, which is finding cures for many diseases or easy health management for diseases plaguing the world.
Since the pharmaceutical industry’s core goal is solely preserving health and lives, it collectively implements many third parties, consisting of advocacy organizations, medical experts, stakeholders, a team of health workers, international NGOs, researchers, and regulatory bodies, to oversee these projects.
Regulations on the social responsibilities of pharmaceutical companies to society
The need to monitor and regulate pharmaceutical drug research, testing, production, and distribution remains necessary for effective outcomes.
Many areas and things are bound to go wrong if society does not see the need for transparency, accountability, and safety checks during this process.
Collectively, everyone ensures that their area they oversee delivers optimally and leaves no room for questions or incompetence.
This becomes a win for both the investors and the health care industry, which are ready to give new medicines a trial, and lastly, for society through patients who receive these drugs and find healing or symptom alleviation.
In essence, patients are given a chance to live by being given access to novelty treatments and therapies.
What are the ethical responsibilities of pharmaceutical companies?
The pharmaceutical industry is also regulated through its ethical responsibilities. They are codes that enforce balance and ensure that everyone benefits from the pharmaceutical societal activities.
In this case, ethics bind the industry to the fact that societal status or placement must not be used as a measuring factor for access to drugs and therapy treatment for everyone in need.
These responsibilities include:
- Fairness in drug allocation
- Commitment toward excellence
- Clinics and patients access to new and improved treatment and therapies
- Empathy toward patients’ ordeal
- Respect for patients’ autonomy, dignity, and right to privacy
- Honesty in dealing with public funds, healthcare experts, and investors
- Professionalism while carrying out their roles and responsibilities
How does pharmaceuticals impact society?
Due to the industry’s devotion to drug quality and many new introductions to health care, many impacts have been felt across the global society, both positively and negatively, if I might add. To start with the positive impact:
Many patients have regained complete control of their lives and have long resumed their everyday lifestyles due to the relentless and impactful responsibilities carried out by the pharmaceutical industry.
Through these roles, medicine has drastically improved the quality of life for patients who need help managing their health, alleviating severe symptoms, forestalling health complications, and generally offering humans a fighting chance to good health.
On the flip side, these innovative and efficient drugs and therapies are very costly and not affordable to the ordinary person who desperately needs them. Situations like this put a dent in the industry’s shiny armor.
What duties do pharmaceutical companies have toward customers?
Customers who are the consumers of the manufactured drugs are vulnerable to the pharmaceutical industry.
An error in drug production, like in chemical mixing and measurement, can lead to a severe global adverse effect.
Therefore, the industry owes the consumers safety in drugs. Side effects should be loudly communicated and also must not cause a dangerous impact on patients who must use the drugs, regardless.
Affordability has been a point of contention in the pharmacy-customer relationship. The industry and regulatory bodies have the duty to balance quality and affordability.
The rural part of society and people with low incomes equally deserve good drugs and therapeutic treatments.
Meaning that the social responsibilities of the pharmaceutical companies are halfway defeated if drugs are inaccessible to the less advantaged in the society.
What are the benefits of the pharmaceutical industry on human society?
In the grand scheme of things, numerous benefits arise from these companies’ roles on the global stage for humans.
It spreads even to the healthy in the society, enriching lives in more ways than we give credit for. Let us look at these benefits in points:
Global economy boost
Pharmaceutical companies help boost the global economy by investing back into it, such as purchasing and obtaining all research and manufacturing materials.
Healed patients returning fully to the workforce is another way the industry boosts the global economy.
Employment Opportunity
More hands are regularly employed during the drug manufacturing process. From the researchers, lab technicians, chemists, and medical experts all gain employment through the pharmacy companies’ roles in society.
More young pharmacists also receive employment opportunities as companies expand to new locations.
Eradication of deadly and infectious diseases
Many deadly and infectious diseases have been wiped out from the world or put under maximum control with the innovation of drugs. Diseases like meningitis are no longer a threat to humans.
Elongation of life expectancy
Humans cannot usually obtain the vitamins needed for the proper function of the human body, which can improve living and elongate life. The advent of supplements by many pharmaceutical companies came to the rescue.
The same goes for some drugs that are used to manage many health conditions, which would have cut the lives of many patients short if not used.
Giving humans a right to live through vaccine
Polio and smallpox eradication through childhood vaccines and the COVID-19 pandemic vaccine all benefit human society from the social responsibility of pharmaceutical companies.
Final thoughts
Global society has gained so much from the roles played by this industry. As praiseworthy as that sounds, when we find ourselves in a position to help the pharmaceutical industry uphold these responsibilities, let us do it for the good of society.
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