From a few months ago, but a great question: Will biotech change pharma ethics?

Big pharma is continuing to absorb the biotech sector, as the drama over ImClone makes clear.
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So perhaps it is no coincidence that medical schools are now leading a charge for a higher ethical standard in the industry. Biotechs have long worked under an ethical cloud, one requiring an ethical sensibility.

Can they change things, or will pharma change them instead?

I’ve worried about this for a long time. Biotech faces ethical challenges, but its track record isn’t bad. The pharma industry’s is awful. The promise of biotech is threatened, I think, by the lousy ethics of the industry that’s absorbing it.