Forest Laboratories. Pharmaceutical Business Ethics - Research Paper Example

Download file to see previous pages... Food and Drug Administration. They even presented imprecise information and obstructed an FDA inspection regarding the presented data. Forest Lab also unethically encouraged the use of Celexa and Lexapro for pediatric use through off-label promotion, although the medicines were approved for adults only.
Discussion
The business ethics concerned with the Pharmaceutical Industry is based on the organizational ethics. Business ethics includes the ideology, principles and values that direct and conduct actions and manners in the business world. Every company should build up its own corporate values, implement code of ethics which it will always stand by and endeavor to prevent delinquency both in the individual as well as organizational level (Ferrell, O.C. “Business Ethics: Ethical Decision Making and Cases”)
The pharmaceutical industry deals with the health and welfare of human beings and hence is a much regulated industry. Every organization in the industry should abide by the standards of business practices and ethics. The functioning of a business should be honest and fair, should maintain quality and safety of the products, and be responsible towards surroundings, health and wellbeing. It should be compliant towards regulatory regulations and make certain that high ethical standards are endorsed, and infringement of law is avoided. It is expected to preserve the utmost level of professionalism and ethical conduct in terms of the communications and transactions with others. Organizations should comply austerely with all measures concerning the handling and stocking up of forbidden and restricted substances (Ferrell, O.C. “Business Ethics: Ethical Decision Making and Cases”; Salek.S & Edgar.A. “Pharmaceutical Ethics”). Clearly, an organization should put up with the legislative obligations existing within the countries where it operates its business. The deeds and conduct of both individual employees and the organization as a whole should always be consistent with the regulations existing in the country within which it operates, and be ethical at all times. There have been considerable pains to offer ethical regulation for pharmaceutical industry but there is no collectively established principle for daily resolutions in pharmaceuticals industry practices. There is a requirement for such a worldwide principle which focuses on an organization’s personal ethics versus that of compliance (Vandenbroucke, P. “Ethics in Pharmaceutical Business Practice.”). Forest Laboratories paid $313 million as a penalty for the three charges imposed against them. Last year, the U.S. Health and Human Services Department's Office of Inspector General were evaluating if they should bar Forest Lab’s Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Howard Solomon, from taking part in central healthcare plans (Krauskopf, L. “Analysis: After 34 years, Forest's CEO takes stand”). The U.S. agency brought into play an administrative policy under the Social Security Act; which permits the agency officials to exclude corporate managers from health-industry organizations performing trade with the government, if the pharmaceutical organization was found accountable of illegal delinquency (Jones. A. “Does Forest Labs Case Signal New Era in White-Collar Prosecution?”). The management of Forest Lab stood firmly beside their CEO, claiming that barring him from the industry would be unfair as there were no allegations against him. The government had not succeeded to establish a straight legal or authoritarian infringement against Howard Solomon other than his association with Forest Lab (Forest Laboratories, “ ...Download file to see next pagesRead More