Wednesday, May 9, 2007

Atoning for their "sins"

The backers of the BIO conference have spent this week talking up the biotech industry's role in improving global health -- not just by making high-end cancer infusions and rare-disease treatments for American patients, but by fighting massive diseases in poor countries.

Perhaps the industry can help, but why would it? Why would a for-profit company jump into a healthcare market with millions of needy people living somewhere with no healthcare budget?

Jim Geraghty of Cambridge's Genzyme Corp., which has recently become involved in malaria research, made a blunt argument in a healthcare panel meeting this morning that good works can be good business. "It's not a humanitarian program," he said of the company's work in the developing world. Doing research in partnerships with local disease-fighters, Geraghty said, can help build support among foreign politicians who might set policies and prices for drugs actually on the market.

But Robert Sebbag, a Sanofi Aventis executive who works in Morocco, said that in much of the world it's an uphill battle for drug companies to shed their reputation as money-minded interlopers.

"The original sin of pharmaceutical industry is to make a profit on health," said Sebbag. "And that is not well accepted. People like drugs, but they don't like drug makers."
(By Stephen Heuser, Globe staff)

Posted by Boston Globe Business Team at 11:15 AM

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