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Don’t Let Bayer’s Bad PR Set Dangerous Precedent
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Business New Haven
10/29/2001
By: BNH
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The I-Hate-Big-Drug-Companies crowd has broken through the roar of the anti-terrorism battle with its new rallying cry: Free Cipro!
The tactic of today is worthy of the very best wartime propagandists. The nation's anthrax panic has led U.S. Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) to seek “generic” production to ostensibly assure greater availability of the drug. Ralph Nader's pubic policy group, one of many organizations that regularly decry “drug company profits,” has joined Schumer. The new Free Cipro! crowd has wrapped its clarion call in the American flag, as bioterrorism “experts” and media outlets shriek that we have only enough Cipro on hand to protect two million people for 60 days.
The facts that only a handful of people have contracted anthrax, or that two other antibiotics can treat it efficaciously, or that the recommended dosage regimen is to use Cipro as part of complement of antibiotics doesn't seem to matter.
U.S. Health & Human Services head Tommy Thompson has said he will ask Congress for $600 million to purchase Cipro from its maker, the West Haven-based North American pharmaceuticals division of Bayer Corp.. He will be purchasing those stocks at a significant discount from the consumer market.
The government to date had been paying $1.83 per 500-milligram tablet. On October 23, Thompson announced that he was close to an agreement with Bayer to purchase the same pills for less than one dollar.
Canada, which initally chose to ignore Bayer's patent rights, ordered a generic supply at a cost of $1.50 per dosage. Bayer made them a deal at $1.30 and is warehousing the generic as back-up.
It doesn't hurt the enemies of drug patent protection that their adversary is the German-based Bayer. While Bayer been making aspirin for 100 years, it seems to be learning about the need for good public communications only quite lately.
In a recent Wall Street Journal article, Glenn Pierce, president-elect of the National Hemophilia Foundation, observed that Bayer “has consistently been one of the least communicative [companies].” Here in New Haven observers have noted a similar lack of communication from the company on key issues, historically. That policy has slowly begun to change since Bayer AG announced its intention to be listed on the NYSE on September 26 (subsequently pushed back by its Baycol recall to February 2002).
The company's www.ciprousa.com Web site reinforces the perception that Bayer still has much to learn about public relations. In spite of two weeks of intense media scrutiny and criticisms as well as numerous responses by the company the site as of October 24 contained only one current press release, announcing Bayer's intention to produce 200 million Cipro tablets over the next 90 days.
Regardless of Bayer's communications problems, patent protection for Cipro should be defended by the U.S. government - not challenged.
Bayer should be held accountable for meeting the legitimate production needs outlined by governments in light of the anthrax scare. If that includes licensing other manufacturers to produce the drug - so be it.
If, however, we regard assaults on our nation's public health as a realistic target of terrorists, now is hardly the time to be attacking drug companies - or the profits they generate legitimately. After all, it is risky and expensive private medical research and development that gave us Cipro and other potentially life-saving drugs in the first place. More important, a robust and financially healthy pharmaceutical and biomedical industry is the best ammunition to continue to battle hundreds of naturally occuring diseases and perhaps other unforeseen biological risks as well.
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