ETHICS, PRICING AND THE PHARMACEUTICAL-INDUSTRY

This paper explores the ethical obligations of pharmaceutical companies to charge fair prices for essential medicines. The moral issue at stake here is distributive justice. Rawls' framework is especially germane since it underlines the material benefits everyone deserves as Kantian persons and the need for an egalitarian approach for the distribution of society's essential commodities such as health care. This concern for distributive justice should be a critical factor in the equation of variables used to set prices for pharmaceuticals.