MPP 6126 - The Bioethics of Pharmaceuticals

Cross-Listed As: MPP 4126

The course focuses on the ethical and social issues that surround the process of therapeutic development, manufacturing, marketing and distribution. Particular focus will be placed upon understanding the numerous ethical dichotomies present in this simultaneously high-risk and high-profit driven industry at a time of profound domestic and international need for disease treatments. Topics include but are not limited to the pharmaceutical development and testing life cycle, the ethics and results of clinical trials, clinical equipoise, non-clinical toxicology, pharmaceutical regulation and the capture effect, the drug discovery process, domestic patent law, international patent law, patent enforcement, the implications of DNA patent law, medical practitioner & pharmaceutical firm relationships, the ethics of pharmaceutical marketing, pharmaceutical product liability, first-world vs. third-world disease pharmaceutical development, epidemiology as it relates to drug development and distribution, and homeopathic therapeutic regulation and distribution.

Prerequisite(s): GPS 4126