“The pharmaceutical industry, as thoroughly documented in recent literature, is the most profitable industry worldwide, more profitable than the weapon and financial industries. The question is not so much if the industry is profitable, it is more that there are levels of profitability that are immoral since this industry is linked to disease and people’s health, in which one has no option. One can buy an iPhone or not, or buy a cheaper one. But if one has cancer, they have to buy the suitable medicine, the one that the doctor prescribed. And if this medicine is not affordable, they simply die.”
….
“The industry is much more interested in producing medicines to treat rather than cure. Because when one has a medicine to treat and to treat for life, they keep a customer. And if it is a business, and this industry is a business, they retain a customer. Hypertension? Take this medicine for the rest of your life. Cholesterol? Take this for the rest of your life. An antibiotic you take for four days and you’re cured. And you lose a customer. Then antibiotics are running out and many drugs that would cure are running out. Today, 80% of medicines are to treat. And sometimes to treat the symptom only, not even the disease.”
~ Dr. Germán Velasquez, former Director of the World Health Organization Secretariat on Public Health, Innovation and Intellectual Property
More on Medical Research: Houston, we have a problem, Drugs for Neglected Diseases Initiative, Horizon 2020: The EU Framework Programme for Research, and Innovative Medicines Initiative.
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UBC Family Practice Residency Program: Abbotsford-Mission Site 