Documenting the financialisation of the pharmaceutical industry

The aim of this paper is to explore the growing financialisation of the pharmaceutical industry from the beginning of the 1990s onwards and to consider its implications. It examines a number of features that demonstrate the increasing influence of the financial sector on the industry, including changing patterns of shareholder ownership, the importance attached to the idea of maximising shareholder value, the pay and share options given to company chief executives and other senior managers, the use of share buybacks, the increase in the outsourcing of manufacturing, and of research and development, along with the growing use of mergers and acquisitions and of borrowing to fund them. The paper examines data in relation to each of these areas in turn in order to provide evidence of the growing financialisation of the industry and to highlight some of its consequences for the industry’s task of developing medicines that enhance population health.