drdĒv
01-07-2005, 11:47 AM
PHILADELPHIA - After a year of paltry earnings growth and questions about drug safety, the pharmaceutical industry has seized an opportunity to brush up its image. The tsunami disaster is prompting companies to open their wallets and warehouses as never before.
The outpouring of cash and supplies by corporations - and pharmaceutical and health-care products companies in particular - is surpassing donations to victims in any previous natural disaster, or even the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, relief agencies say. In all, health-care companies have announced donations totaling at least $72 million so far.
Thursday night a FedEx airplane left Washington Dulles International Airport packed with $1.5 million worth of donated medicines and medical supplies. The shipment, destined for Jakarta, Indonesia, and sponsored by Project Hope, contained everything from antibiotics, antiviral drugs and skin-infection ointments donated by GlaxoSmithKline to bandages and surgical dressings from Johnson & Johnson.
Wyeth has donated $1 million, and given antibiotics, vaccines, anti-inflammatory products, nutritionals and analgesics. Wyeth is also donating over-the-counter consumer products, such as Advil, Dimetapp and Robitussin.
The outpouring of cash and supplies by corporations - and pharmaceutical and health-care products companies in particular - is surpassing donations to victims in any previous natural disaster, or even the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, relief agencies say. In all, health-care companies have announced donations totaling at least $72 million so far.
Thursday night a FedEx airplane left Washington Dulles International Airport packed with $1.5 million worth of donated medicines and medical supplies. The shipment, destined for Jakarta, Indonesia, and sponsored by Project Hope, contained everything from antibiotics, antiviral drugs and skin-infection ointments donated by GlaxoSmithKline to bandages and surgical dressings from Johnson & Johnson.
Wyeth has donated $1 million, and given antibiotics, vaccines, anti-inflammatory products, nutritionals and analgesics. Wyeth is also donating over-the-counter consumer products, such as Advil, Dimetapp and Robitussin.