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When corporations in capitalism-run-amok societies like the United States are run primarily for financial gain and achieving ever-increasing shareholder value, ethical considerations and the spiritual and environmental costs to society are disregarded. In such societies, it is considered normal for corporations to regard profits, especially short-term profits, as the main criterion for decision-making - and NOT the well-being of the workers or the environment.
As long as they can “get away with it”, sociopathic corporations, just like their cunning, human counterparts, can be expected to use lies, cheating and stealing as acceptable business tactics in their day-to-day operations as they seek to fatten the “bottom line” for their shareholders.
Below is a sobering letter written by a cabal of multinational Big Pharma CEOs that was addressed to the conservative Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe (leader of the so-called “Liberal” Democratic Party). I suspect that the letter was not supposed to be read by anybody outside of the cartel’s inner circle. The letter was sent from the multinational pharmaceutical industry’s most powerful lobbying and trade association groups called the International Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers and Associations (IFPMA) (www.ifpma.org).
Here is an important item from the IFPMA’s website that describes its ideals.
“IFPMA represents research-based pharmaceutical companies and associations across the globe. The research-based pharmaceutical industry's 2 million employees research, develop and provide medicines and vaccines that improve the life of patients worldwide.
”Based in Geneva, IFPMA has official relations with the United Nations and contributes industry expertise to help the global health community find solutions that improve global health.
The letter below was signed by the 5-person IFPMA Executive Committee which includes the CEOs of the USA’s Eli Lilly & Company ($24 billion in revenue in 2018), Japan’s Daiichi Sankyo ($8 billion in revenue in 2018), Belgium’s UCB ($27 billion in revenue in 2018) and France’s Sanofi ($42 billion in revenue in 2018). The fifth member of the IFPMA executive committee is Director General Thomas Cueni, who is not an executive with a pharmaceutical company probably wrote the letter.
The letter was co-signed by a group of 20-some of the most powerful multinational pharmaceutical industry executives that attended a “behind closed door” meeting in Tokyo with Prime Minister Abe (see photo of the attendees posing with PM Abe below). The names and signatures of the executives (and their corporations) are listed at the bottom of the letter.
The letter reveals a number of goals that this Big Pharma cartel envisions for the future of medicine as they want it to be practiced - especially in the realms of its highly profitable, dangerous drugs and vaccines. The most alarming of these goals was their intent to make profitable use of public computer databases, “IoT” technology (see next paragraph for more on ”IoT”) and actual “virtual clinical trials” in order to “reduce drug development time and costs and improve the probability of success” for new drug and vaccine development.
(Note: “IoT,” which was not elaborated upon in the letter to Prime Minister Abe, is defined in Wikipedia as: “the Internet of Things, a system of interrelated computing devices, mechanical and digital machines, objects, animals or people that are provided with unique identifiers (UIDs) and the ability to transfer data over a network without requiring human-to-human or human-to-computer interaction.”
The occasional bolding and italicization of words and phrases in the letter below are intended for emphasis. Those changes are mine (GGK), but the words (AND grammatical errors, etc) are as the letter was originally written. (Keep in mind that the only “ethical” obligation of this group of over-privileged multimillionaire profiteers (none of whom are clinicians) is to make ever-increasing profits and dividend payments for themselves and their shareholders.)
Sociopathic corporations and their managers have no legal or moral obligation to the well-being of physician’s patients, although it should be in their best interest to develop and sell safe and effective products.
Nonetheless, the reality is that sociopathic entities of all types – whether human or corporate – must always be regarded with suspicion, especially when they are selling drugs, vaccines, or ideas. Physicians especially must be on guard when dealing with sociopathic dorporations if for no other reason than to honor their pledge to “First Do No Harm”.
<<<Power Corrupts and Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely – Lord Acton>>>
Be aware that this group of power-hungry corporate profiteers is actually promoting universal health care (UHC) in developed as well as undeveloped countries, so they must have concrete plans in mind to make sure that every future universal healthcare-covered patient will be thoroughly screened, (mis-)diagnosed, thoroughly over-prescribed with cocktails of prescription drugs and fully over-vaccinated with cocktails of the 270+ vaccines that are in the industry’s developmental pipelines.
Knowing the sorry level of pharmacology- and vaccinology-literacy among politicians and even health-caregivers the futuristic plans of the equally-illiterate Big Pharma CEOs could easily come to pass. With the virtually unlimited lobbying and advertising power of the drug trade and lobbying associations that include the International Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers and Associations and the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA) the plans are a virtual certainty, unless an effective grassroots education and resistance program can be mounted.
Please read and re-read the following letter with the awareness that similar secretive Big Pharma meetings with heads of state are probably a common occurrence. Indeed, Donald Trump, who has not done anything about his campaign promises to aggressively deal with Big Pharma’s, Big Vaccine’s and Big Medicine’s price-gouging abuses, met - behind closed doors - shortly after his inauguration (January 31, 2017) with a number of American Big Pharma executives. The group included executives from Merck, Novartis, Eli Lilly, Johnson & Johnson, Amgen, Celgene, and the head of the well-funded drug and vaccine lobbying powerhouse, the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA). Trump’s conciliatory speech can be heard at https://fortune.com/2017/01/31/trump-pharma-ceos-meeting-demands/,
Trump has since gone soft on Big Pharma’s abuses, promising instead to de-regulate the industry and make it easier for drug manufacturers to get their new drugs and vaccines to market. And Big Pharma stocks - and the rest of the stock market as well – surged on the news.
Bu the way, it can probably be safely assumed that Big Pharma had already come to pro-corporate understandings with Hillary Clinton, who had been expected to win the presidency.
The obvious lesson to be learned is that unelected Big Corporations rule control the majority of Big Government politicians in our corrupted capitalist nation and that Big Pharma also has control of Big Medicine and Big Media. Read on.
Recent IFPMA Group Photo with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Tokyo, Japan – (photo fromhttps://www.ifpma.org/bcr/)
IFPMA, Geneva, Switzerland - June 3, 2019
Dear Prime Minister Abe,
We are the Biopharmaceutical CEO Roundtable members representing global (research & development-based) R&D-based pharmaceutical companies. We have committed to deliver innovative medicines/medical technologies all over the world including Japan, to build a vibrant society that enables people live longer, healthier, and happier without suffering from disease through access to new medicines.
We appreciate your leadership in designating the biopharmaceutical industry a key strategic industry for Japan. For the coming G20 meetings in Japan, as a country committed to advancing medical innovation, we welcome Japan’s solid leadership globally, but also in the following three global health issues for the realization of our ultimate goal.
< >The first aspect is we still do not have enough engagement for health systems strengthening to reach the goal of universal health coverage (UHC) – ensuring access to appropriate healthcare services with reasonable cost – especially, in developing countries.
We commend the Government of Japan’s (GOJ) continued support for the Global Fund and the Gavi Alliance, and its leadership in hosting the Gavi replenishment launch event in August. So far, GOJ, as part of its global leadership on healthy aging, has greatly supported moving towards UHC, together with the international community, and raised the health agenda as a prioritized topic at the international fora (e.g., United Nations, G7 Summit, or TICAD).
In particular, the GOJ reaffirmed the following needs at the UHC Forum 2017 in Tokyo:
1) to strengthen global momentum towards Universal Health Care,
2) to develop and implement a framework for cooperation at the country level,
3) to monitor progress continuously,
4) to secure sustainable financial resources for UHC, and
5) to promote innovation.
Furthermore, G7 Ise-Shima vision reaffirms the importance of immunization, throughout the life course, as one of key measures to prevent the spread of infectious disease and address emerging pandemics.
We, the pharmaceutical companies, would like to support Prime Minister Abe’s strong leadership in these areas. Also, we have been proactively engaged to establish our contribution toward health systems strengthening through our own Initiative (Access Accelerated*) to bring all relevant stakeholders together.
Recognizing that substantial hurdles remain, we need to encourage individual countries to further implement or strengthen actions to promote Universal Health Care. To this end, we look forward to your continuous support to mobilize country-led processes towards UHC, increase alignment of individual efforts, and accelerate UHC goals globally.
< >The second aspect is although many medical products have become available to date for certain diseases, there are still either no treatments for, or ineffective or inadequate treatments for many other diseases.
This is a common issue for both developed and developing countries. We, the R&D based pharmaceutical companies, underscore the value of partnership and believe that partnerships are a fundamental component for fostering innovation.
The AMR (Anti-microbial Resistance) Industry Alliance initiative**, our multi-stakeholder coordination platform that addresses a global public health concern of antibacterial drug resistance, is just an example.
To facilitate innovation, governmental understanding and support are crucial. We are grateful for your commitment to support innovation as one of the five commitments mentioned above.In order to implement the commitment and deliver innovative medicines to patients, we are making all-out efforts to develop innovative medicines.
It is vital to institute harmonized regulatory systems as well as an enforceable reward system for innovative technology in each country, in particular the predictable and reasonable protection of intellectual property (IP) rights.
Although some view the IP system as a barrier to access to medicines, the weight of evidence demonstrates that focusing on areas like pricing and IP in isolation will not achieve long-term successful health outcomes or better access to new medicines, and must be linked to the core healthcare system issues.
< >The third aspect is the need to make the shift to a new healthcare system utilizing various kinds of medical data, especially, taking into consideration the recent advancements of digital technologies like AI or big data, and to develop legal frameworks that facilitate these advancements, including with respect to data flows.
We think the shifts also advance the aforementioned two challenges:
1) accelerating progress towards UHC, and
2) resolving unmet medical needs.
Japan established a national health insurance (NHI) system a long time ago, and the large amount of health and medical data collected under the NHI system has the potential to enable the achievement of UHC in response to the aging society through the seamless coordination of preventive measures, early diagnosis and treatment, effective use of precision medicines, and efficient use and optimization of healthcare expenditures.
Furthermore, the shift to a new system would enhance utilization of real-world data for innovative drug and technology development, thereby enabling the R&D pharmaceutical industry to discover and develop innovative medicines more quickly and efficiently.
For example,use of a public medical information database or combination of “Internet of Things” (IoT) technology and virtual clinical trial can potentially reduce drug development time and costs and improve the probability of success.
As a result, our innovative products can be delivered earlier to patients in need.
In conclusion, we continue our efforts to join with others to accelerate progress towards UHC, to resolve unmet medical needs, and to transform to a new healthcare system utilizing various medical data, so that we can contribute to people’s health globally.
We look forward to Japan’s leadership to guide constructive and evidence-based discussions on these global topics and shape a strategic policy decision in the G20 and beyond.
We look forward to continuing to work with you to advance our goals.
Yours sincerely,
David A. Ricks, Chairman and CEO Eli Lilly and Company and President, IFPMA
George Nakayama, Chairman and CEO Daiichi Sankyo Co. Ltd.
Jean-Christophe Tellier, CEO and Chairman of the Executive Committee, UCB (Union Chimique Belge) S.A.
Dr. Olivier Brandicourt, CEO Sanofi
Thomas Cueni, Director General, IFPMA
Co-signatories:
Kenji Yasukawa, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Astellas Pharma Inc
Robert A. Bradway, Chairman and CEO Amgen Inc
Michel Vounatsos, CEO Biogen Inc.
Hubertus von Baumbach, Chairman of the Board of Managing Directors Boehringer Ingelheim.
Tatsuro Kosaka, President and CEO Chugai Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd
Werner Baumann, Chairman of the Board of Management and CEO Bayer AG
Haruo Naito, KBE RepresentativeCEO Corporate Officer and CEO Eisai Co., Ltd
Giovanni Caforio, Chairman and CEO Bristol-Myers Squibb
Dr. Severin Schwan, CEO F. Hoffmann-La Roche AG
Debora Dunsire, CEO H. Lundbeck A/S
Hiroshi Nomura, President and CEO, Sumitomo Dainippon Pharma Co., Ltd
Mark J. Alles, Chairman, CEO Celgene Corporation
Albert Bourla, CEO Pfizer Inc
Danial O’Day, Chairman and CEO Gilead Sciences Inc
Kenneth C. Frazier, Chairman, President and CEO Merck & Co., Inc
Olivier Laureau, President Servier Group
Christophe Weber, President and CEO Takeda Pharmaceutical Co. Ltd
Dr. Isao Teshirogi, President and CEO Shionogi & Co., Ltd
Vas Narasimhan, CEO Novartis AF
Dr. Eric Cornu,t Chairman Menarini Industrie Farmaceutiche Riunite
Dr. Jorge Gallardo, President Almirall
Kåre Schultz, President and CEO TEVA Pharmaceutical Ltd
Pascal Soriot, CEO AstraZeneca UK Limited
Joaquin Duato, Vice Chairman of the Executive Committee Johnson & Johnson
Lars Fruergaard Jørgensen, President and CEO Novo Nordisk A/S
Emma Walmsley, CEO GlaxoSmithKline, UK
Dr. Stefan Oschmann, Chairman of Executive Board and CEO Merck KGaA
David Meek, Chief Executive Officer IPSEN Pharmaceutical
Joaquin Duato, Vice Chairman of the Executive Committee Johnson & Johnson
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And here are some more sobering details that foreshadow the future implementation of a plethora of dangerous, poorly evaluated drugs and vaccines that will no longer make use of the gold-standard clinical studies using randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled, long-term clinical trials in favor of “virtual” clinical trials (!) based on computer-data. Beware Big Pharma’s Brave New World. GGK
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IFPMA Welcomes Seven New Members - 24 August 2015
https://www.ifpma.org/resource-centre/ifpma-welcomes-seven-new-members/
Shionogi & Co. Ltd is a pharmaceutical company with headquarters in Osaka, Japan…
Shire focuses on developing and delivering innovative medicines…
BIO is the world’s largest trade association representing biotechnology companies, academic institutions, state biotechnology centers and related organizations across the United States and in more than 30 other nations…
INTERPAT is a trade association of research-based pharmaceutical companies. Its members include European, Japanese and US head-quartered corporations…
The Pharmaceutical Security Institute (PSI) is a not-for-profit, membership organization dedicated to protecting the public health, sharing information on the counterfeiting of pharmaceuticals, and initiating enforcement actions through the appropriate authorities…
The International Pharmaceutical Congress Advisory Association (IPCAA) is a non-profit membership organisation focusing on congress management…
The International Federation of Pharmaceutical Wholesalers’ (IFPW) is the global trade association representing the full-service pharmaceutical wholesaler and distribution industry…
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* IFPMA’s Access Accelerated:
Access Accelerated brings together over 20 biopharmaceutical companies committed to tackling the growing burden of non-communicable diseases in low and middle-income countries. By collaborating with partners, we co-create scalable and sustainable solutions to improve people’s health…
** IFPMA’s AMR Industry Alliance:
The AMR Industry Alliance is one of the largest private sector coalitions set up to provide sustainable solutions to curb antimicrobial resistance, with over 100 biotech, diagnostics, generics and research-based pharmaceutical companies and associations joining forces…
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