VIDEO: The COVID-19 calls into question the institutional structure underlying the pharmaceutical industry.
While the World Health Organization and others have called for global public goods and some companies have relaxed their patent rights on potential treatments, much of industry has pushed back against any attempts that might threaten their monopoly power to set prices. Public acceptance of the role of private companies to control life-saving drugs, and as well as of the intellectual property system, shapes governmental policy and contributes to public shaming. This study consists of an ethnographic content analysis of online comments about news reports of Gilead Science’s pricing of remdesivir. Analyzing elite and public framing about medicine pricing informs our understanding of the social construction of markets and advocacy efforts to address the failings in our current pharmaceutical system.
Speakers
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Eric O. Silva
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Matthew Flynn
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