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Absurdly Driven look at the business world with a skeptical eye and a language firmly rooted in the cheek.
Morality is a slippery thing.
We all claim to have them, but we misguard them one way or another to the weirdest.
We go to work, make arrangements against our colleagues, lie to casual customers and, during a coffee break, we lament the immorality of a politician or a college football coach.
Some might mumble that morality is like a pornographic movie.
You know them when you see them.
My moral compass thus enters a disturbed magnetic field hearing the words of the CEO of Laboratoires Nostrum, Nirmal Mulye.
You see, last month he raised the price of his company's Nitrofurantoin antibiotic – it is extremely helpful for bladder infections – from $ 474.75 to $ 2,392. That's around 400 percent.
These things happen. In fact, they seem to be happening a bit in the pharmaceutical world.
Is it really such a greedy business?
It seems like no. Instead, it's a business driven by moral imperatives.
Or rather, former CEO.
The famous Wu-Tang fan, Shkreli, seemed to like his image of "Pharma Bro", someone who has risen by 5% the price of a potentially life-saving medicine and who thought it was just a good deal.
Of course, Mulye would not support Shkreli as an effigy of moral rectitude.
Good now. Mulye offered these words:
I agree with Martin Shkreli that when he increased the price of his medicine, he was in his rights because he had to reward his shareholders.
Would it be a moral right?
Mulye's logic is that, in the case of his company, a competitor had raised its price for the equivalent drug – but branded – huge amounts over the past three years.
Now it was $ 2,800.
So look, the generic of Nostrum is $ 408 cheaper. It could almost be described as a business.
A moral market, perhaps.
I contacted Mulye to ask him if he felt a moral responsibility towards those who needed the drugs of his company. I will update, should I hear.
I fear, however, that Mulye needs to refine his analogies. He compared his decision to raise the price to an art dealer who raises the price of a painting to half a billion dollars.
Another example of its analogical character:
We must earn money when we can. The price of iPhones is increasing, the price of cars is increasing, hotel rooms are very expensive.
I am not sure whether it is a general description of economic realities or an expression of Mulye's personal need to pay for these particular things.
Oh, I'm sure Mulye's decision is only another day in the pharmaceutical industry because it is questionable and mired in a system that believes that the profit and health of people are compatible.
Indeed, Mulye has no kind words for the Federal Drug Administration.
FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb suggested that the feelings were reciprocal.
1/2 About @FT history today @ bydavidcrow; There is no moral imperative to take into account and benefit patients. The FDA will continue to promote competition so that speculators and those who do not consider public health consequences can not benefit patients who need medication
– Scott Gottlieb, M.D. (@SGottliebFDA) September 11, 2018
Gottlieb also noted that the drug is not uncommon.
I am very concerned about Mulye's position in the moral defense.
When CEOs invoke morality, you hope it has something to do with the basic human condition, rather than the joy of pulling the weak.
When a CEO of a pharmaceutical company talks about morality, I'm afraid that many believe that he might deserve a punitive sentence.
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