Corporate Social Responsibility & The Drug Industry

A report by Consumers International, a global federation of consumer organisations, examined the corporate social responsibility policies of 20 major drug companies to test what information they disclose about sponsoring patient groups, funding disease awareness campaigns and offering hospitality to medical experts. The report, Branding the Cure: A consumer perspective on Corporate Social Responsibility, Drug Promotion and the Pharmaceutical Industry, "found only one company, (Eli Lilly), provided information on policies towards patient organisations; Less than half provided information about codes of conduct for gifts and hospitality to health care professionals; Pfizer, that worlds biggest pharmaceutical company, provides no specific public information about its marketing code of conduct." The report concludes that self-regulatory codes of conduct are inadequate and that there is a need to "dissolve [the] veiled relationships between pharmaceutical companies and health researchers."

Other SourceWatch Resources

 * Corporate Social Responsibility
 * Drug industry
 * Patient Groups