When Durand was offered the position as Vice President of Sales with Tap Pharmaceuticals, he had no idea what he was getting involved with. All he saw was a potential for a promotion in an industry where he had already served his time and made a name for himself. Durand has a couple alternatives in this ethical situation. He could have kept his mouth shut and adhered to Tap Pharmaceuticals ' policies and procedures and unethical practices. The outcome to this alternative could have proven to be very poor for Durand. If Durand continued to allow Tap Pharmaceuticals to conduct business in the sales department as they always had in the past, eventually, the federal government would have caught on to the unethical practices and levied fines against Tap Pharmaceuticals and Mr. Durand. He could have even been prosecuted for the practices he witnessed at Tap Pharmaceuticals. When employees are directed to blatantly break the law in order to keep sales up and to give out medicine samples without charging for them, there is a huge ethical problem. Tap Pharmaceuticals instructed the doctors to charge Medicare for the samples even though they never paid for them in the first place. It seemed as if Tap Pharmaceuticals planned to break every law of the trade in order to make the most money in the least amount of time. This alternative would not work …show more content…
The profit driven only environment provided no ethical leadership. Upper management including the CEO, who set the tone of weak unethical leadership, held no interest in change. TAP had no formal cultural system. The bottom line was the only factor and how profits were obtained was of little concern. When Durand attempted to make positive changes to the system through a "Reward System," upper management put a stop to it even tough it was working and labeled him a trouble maker. TAP was not interested in positive ethical change. The gifts to urologists and doctors TAP pharmaceuticals participated in set an unethical culture.
ConclusionIn the end Tap received one of the largest fines in the pharmaceutical industry and the job of rebuilding its image and reorganizing its business practices. Seven of its senior management team received heavy financial and judicial penalties for their part in the Lupron scandal. Douglas Durand in the end had to start over in a new less lucrative position, furthermore; he did receive a large settlement from the federal government under the Whistle-Blowers Act and currently retired and living in