Ethics in the international marketing of pharmaceuticals

The pharmaceutical industry offers valuable products that may positively affect the lives and well–being of people. The industry has been criticized for enormous profits, which some often link to unethical decisions. This paper will concern the international marketing of pharmaceutical products, and factors such as prices, patents, government and regulation, information asymmetry, as well as how cultural differences may lead to certain challenges. Corruption is a part of unethical acts, and it is an important phenomenon, as corrupt decisions may drastically affect the well-being and daily lives of millions of people around the world. Corruption will be defined, as well as corruption in the pharmaceutical sector, as the pharmaceutical sector is a vast, several hundred-billion dollar industry. Sadly, the counterfeit/substandard drug trade has risen to become a $75 billion dollar industry as well, and it will be discussed what corporations and governments can do to ensure fair, ethical conduct of business, and how to ensure that the end-consumers get the real product. The purpose of this paper is to look deeper into the factors involved in international marketing, the ethics involved, how corruption may occur in the pharmaceutical industry – how to combat it, and what an international marketer must be aware of when navigating the landscape of the pharmaceutical sector