"The technology is almost out in front of the ethical issues."
Jennifer Doudna, PhD,
Winner of the 2015 Breakthrough Prize for CRISPR Technology
..."it is essential to assess both the risks and the benefits of any new technology."
The New Yorker, November 16, 2015
Why study Pharmaceutical Ethics?
​Because humans are still the targets of many diseases without cures...
...because science is exciting and seductive,
...and because the industry needs and works with inspiration--in research, development and commercialization.
The combination of urgent human need and rich scientific investigation may lead to tension between filling a human need and long pharmaceutical gestation times. There is pressure to put needed product on the market quickly--but there are associated risks and costs to do so.
This course will look at the great improvements in human health that have occurred as a result of drug therapies, at some of the notable mistakes over the last century that have changed the industry, at unfortunate errors of all parties that have sometimes plagued drug development.
This course will examine the art and science of balancing human need with scientific opportunity and risk, and the goal of achieving tangible and intangible benefits for those who suffer.
Angela Rossetti,
MBE, MBA
"As a scientist and as a person it is important to participate in that discussion." (which considers the ethical implications of technology.)
Jennifer Doudna, PhD, University of California, Berkeley, 2014
There is discovery.....and then there is development​
Drugs can and have done enormous good for humankind throughout the centuries.
Discoveries that have aided human health started with plants, moved on to chemicals, now to biologics and genetic therapies. The quest for cures has been intense and sometimes controversial.
Drug development has, over millenia, been been done by medicine women and men, physicians, chemists, government agencies and private enterprise.
Who does it best? Who gets it right? To whom do we owe our pharmacopeia?
This course will encourage all to think about the answers to these questions.
A few words about Intellectual Honesty...
Intellectual honesty Is critical to this course.
Critical thinking requires a willingness to seek all of the facts, a thorough understanding of those facts, and a reflective formation of a well considered opinion.
I look forward to the lively discussion that will ensue from students who form intellectually honest opinions and present them in a cohesive, well balanced fashion.
