Heroin and Contergan

Research Paper (postgraduate) from the year 2007 in the subject Business economics - Business Management, Corporate Governance, grade: 1,3, University of Applied Sciences Osnabrück, course: International Markets, language: English, abstract: In the modern medicine the use of pharmaceutical products for treatment of wide spectrum of diseases is indispensable and of common practice. Hence, the responsibility of the pharmaceutical companies to guarantee the safety of their drugs for human consumption is enormous. Unfortunately, there are cases from the history proving that due to improper testing and human negligence drugs caused more harm than good. Even in the present day, these tragedies are worth an examination in order to remember and learn from past mistakes and to prevent their recurrence. Many people believe that street drugs are 'an entirely different class than prescription drugs, and they believe that pharmaceutical companies would never manufacture or sell street drugs'. Actually the well-known pharmaceutical giant, Bayer AG, is responsible for the most addictive and feared drug nowadays - heroin. Exactly 50 years ago, on 1. October 1957, another big pharmaceutical producer, Grünenthal, introduced the substance thalidomide. It was perscribed mainly as a sedative and for treatment of morning sickness during pregnancy, before it was discovered that the drug caused severe birth defects. In this assignment I will investigate the consequences caused by both drugs, as well the role of the producing company in the tragedy. By providing a brief history of the development of heroin and thalidomide, as well as a detailed research of the testing and marketing strategies, I am interested in the crisis management measures that Bayer AG and Chemie Grünenthal applied to handle the catastrophes. Since heroin and Contergan were distributed all over the world, their negative effects caused harm globally. In the conclusion of the assignment, I will give a short analysis of the corporation's efforts to prevent further damage and to reverse existing problems, bearing in mind the social responsibilities of the pharmaceutical sector.