Taking up bioethical responsibility? : the role of global bioethics in the social responsibility of pharmaceutical corporations operating in developing countries

Abstract

Today, bioethics is challenged due to the consequences of globalisation. While traditionally being focused on sensitive national issues, bioethics is currently confronted with international problems related to global health, global inequality and the increasing operations of the pharmaceutical industry in developing countries. For these reasons the Universal Declaration on Bioethics and Human Rights is trying to get bioethics to a next level by defining broad principles and including the pharmaceutical industry in its scope. This thesis will explore if the new more broad and global bioethics can adopt a bigger role in the corporate social responsibility of the pharmaceutical industry. This is done by looking at the response of the pharmaceutical industry towards the bioethical concerns about the affordability of medicines, the research on neglected diseases and clinical trials with human subjects. These concerns are already addressed by human rights and the right to health in specific.If bioethics wants to play a role in the corporate social responsibility of pharmaceutical corporations it needs to search for its added value in comparison to the rights based approach that the pharmaceutical industry has adopted.