Do Drug Companies Help?

By Darien Bates

Marisa Kozlowski used to be a drug representative for one of the large pharmaceutical companies. In fact, that was how she got involved with the Virginia Hospital Center’s medical brigade to Honduras that completed its sixth annual trek there last week.

She heard about the team from Dr. Barry Byer and with her connection to the companies that make some of the drugs that the team needed for their work, she hoped to use her relationship with the drug companies to assist in acquiring some free donations of their pricey products.

But now four years since she first joined the team, the major source of necessary drugs remains those that are purchased, not donated.

Purchasing is done through Cross Link, a medical charity organization in Falls Church that sends supplies to places around the world. With connections of its own, Cross Link has been able to work out deals to buy drugs at low cost.

But the hoped-for donations have never appeared as expected.

That’s not to say that there are no donated drugs. In fact, Kozlowski said, the big pharmaceutical companies are fully willing to give drugs, writing off the value of those drugs on their books as charitable giving. But too often, those donations do little good for teams like the Virginia medical brigade.

There are two reasons for the low impact of the donations. The first is that many of the donated drugs have a very short shelf life. The donations are often of drugs that are about to expire. By donating them then writing them off as charitable gifts, the drug companies contribute nothing but gain financially, themselves.

Instead of offering a service, the companies actually benefit through their supposed altruism.

Meanwhile, the drugs seldom last long enough to be any good for the team which often has to collect them well in advance, and stockpile them for longer periods of time, so that they can be left in the places they visit for an impact long after the team leaves.

The other reason for the low impact of the pharmaceutical companies’ “donations” is the fact that many of the drugs they’re willing to donate aren’t the kind the medical brigade needs.

Speaking with her experience as a drug representative, Kozlowski said that one of the reasons companies donate drugs is to get doctors to start prescribing them. By handing out free packs of Lipitor, for example, they believe physicians are more likely to prescribe their drug.

Also, when the free samples run out, those who have been using them are more likely to go on to buy them. For the companies, it is a self-serving form of marketing.

For these companies, the purpose is simply to sell their new drugs. Older drugs generally have expired patents, and therefore are already being produced by generic drug manufacturers. The profits are best on the new drugs they can introduce exclusively.

Many of these newer drugs, including arthritis medications, cholesterol and blood pressure drugs, are great for the people who suffer from these conditions. But they are also drugs taken over a long period of time and for the people suffering from diseases in Honduras, the problems are more basic, things that western medicine found cures for long ago.

Even the newer, pricier, antibiotics are unnecessary because most of the diseases in Honduras have yet to develop an immunity to the older medications. This means that the older drugs are still effective.

What the medical brigade needs are basic antibiotics and asthma medications, exactly the kinds of drugs that don’t make much sense for the big pharmaceutical companies to give away for free. Instead, the doctors are forced to pay thousands of dollars for these medications.

One type of drug the companies did donate was Elimite an expensive drug used to fight scabes.

By the end of last week in Honduras, the doctors were facing shortages in vital medications. They treated over 7,000 patients, but were having to change their prescriptions by Friday due to running out of some preferred varieties.

Over the next year, the team will once again be looking for charitable donations, but it is likely, once again, that the donations that’ll make the most impact will be cash from generous citizens to buy medication, and nothing significant from the biggest corporations that could so easily help the most.