Wall Street Journal Editorial

[JHL]

The Wall Street Journal editorial of Tues, 12 Jun 2012 points out how PHRMA, Billy Tauzin and Jeff Kindler (CEO of Pfizer) were complicit in promoting the passage of the Affordable Care Act (ObamaCare). Everyone should read it and recommend it to your friends.

The mindset that PHRMA and Kindler demonstrate is typical of the new type of 'pharmaceutical executive' in that they really have no principles except one, how to make the biggest buck and to heck with the patient, the physician and the country.

Pharmaceutical companies are no longer pharmaceutical companies, developing drugs for health problems that need better solutions. Rather, they are marketing companies, run by marketing people (or attorneys, like Kindler), making drugs to take a share of a big market but that offer no real improvement in patient care. Therefore the proliferation of 'me-too' drugs.

 

[Anonymous]

For JK, this deal was much more about being a player in Democratic circles than the potential good it might do the industry in the short run (which now looks like the very short run). For his key staff, who enabled him, such as Sussman and Beatty, it was about fanning JK's ego and seizing power by firing those who disagreed with this pro-Democratic, pro-Obama legislation. Dissent was crushed but those guys, such as Bagger, were right -- no enduring good comes from striking deals with the Government. Promises last 1-2 years and are forgotten.

The current situation (investigations, bad PR) is just another gift left by Jeff and his enablers (most all who are still here).