[Eyes of a Reporter] Are you a ‘good company?’

Every year around this time, one book hikes up the best seller ranking at book stores.

 

The book, ‘Trend Korea Series’ by Professor Kim Nando of Seoul National University, summarizes next year’s trend in Korea with a list of keywords.

 

‘Trend Korea 2020’ had a top ten consumer trend keyword list including ‘fair play’.

 

The book explains how the notion of ‘good company’ has gotten popular among consumers over the years, therefore, ‘fair competitiveness’ would become a more vital factor affecting consumer’s choice.

 

At a recent special lecture session, Professor Kim claimed “Growing up in a society where individuality is prevalent, Millennials wants to change their society with a small effort.

 

Even when buying a product, they put value not only in the product itself, but also in the brand’s good influence towards the society”.

 

With his theory, he further explained the lately popular boycott movement against problematic brand is not just a simple aggression, but an expression of desire to be fair and correct.

 

During the lecture, I suddenly thought of a question.

 

Which pharmaceutical company is actually a ‘good company?’ In Korean society, pharmaceutical companies have a relatively positive public image.

 

The society appreciates how the companies provide needed drugs to patients and contribute in saving lives.

 

How wonderful is it that their income made from drug sales is reinvested toward new drug R&D, and also on corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities.

 

However, some companies have disappointed Koreans and crippled their trust in the industry in recent years.

 

Last year March, a French pharmaceutical company announced it would suspend supplying a contrast agent used for liver cancer treatment due to low pricing in Korea.

 

As a response, the Korean society got infuriated.

 

A British multinational healthcare company has been the infamous company for a while as the one responsible for making humidifier disinfectant with severe health hazard.

 

After developing an anticancer treatment significantly extending patient’s overall survival period, a large-scale pharmaceutical company experienced painful clash and dispute with patient groups as the company insisted on drug pricing at around few million won per month.

 

Global companies are not alone on this topic.

 

Prosecutors are still investigating a Korean bio company accused of manipulating ingredient report on its osteoarthritis gene therapy.

 

An allegation of another Korean company, despite its title of ‘good company’ earned from the society, providing illegal rebate to healthcare provider for prescribing their products turned out to be true and the their executives were sentenced with jail term.

 

Also there are many companies regularly making negative postings at vulnerable time for investors fearing it would affect stock price.

 

In this capitalistic society, reproaching pharmaceutical companies for their profit-making decisions could be too harsh.

 

Supplying needed drug or CSR activities can only be possible, when a company is sustainable.

 

But, shouldn’t the executives of pharmaceutical companies feel more responsible about the society’s higher expectation of business ethics on health related companies?

 

We can only hope that those pharmaceutical companies would repent their wrong choices and stand tall again as a ‘good company’, keeping their initial objective of ‘contributing to public health’ in mind.