Leg 500 Assigment 4

Legal and Ethical Considerations in Marketing, Product Safety and Intellectual Property

LEG 500 Law Ethic and Corporate Governance

Research three to five (3-5) ethical issues relating to marketing and advertising, intellectual property, and regulation of product safety and examine whether PharmaCARE violated any of the issues in question.

In respect to Pharmacare’s approach to marketing and advertising of the drug AD23, they clearly manipulate the motivation (AZRIA, 2015) of the consumer by highlighting the medicinal characteristics of the drug in treating a condition (Alzheimer’s) that was previously thought to be untreatable. As a consumer, particular in the drug industry, certain assumptions have to be made as to the validity of adverting based on FDA oversight and the legal ramification for false or misleading advertising. Pharmacare circumvented FDA oversight and scrutiny of AD23 by using a compounding pharmacy to mass it activities. Additionally, based on record profits produced by the sales of the drug, Pharmacare consciously withheld information from the consumer on the side effects of the drug even after they were alerted by one of its designers. And finally, before news of deaths related the use of AD23 went public, Pharamcare sold the rights to AD23 to another Pharmaceutical company in an attempt to avoid liability.

The FDA maintains oversight over the product safety (MELINE, 2006) of a new drug. They develop profiles based on feedback from the consumer, medical professional or any viable feedback mechanism and conduct analyses in the post -marketing environment to corroborate the clams of the company. But most importantly, to protect the consumer. In respect to Pharamcare, the company was well aware of the side effect of the drug based on their own research and initial feedback linked to use of...