Ethics, Pricing, and the Pharmaceutical Industry. Corporate Communication Faces Drug-Cost Issues

The paper investigates arguments brought forth by a big corporation in the pharmaceutical industrywhen dealing with bioethical issues. Apologetic strategies (or lack of thereof) and their discursive manifestations are investigated. More specifically, the paper focuses on press releases issued by Mylan, the pharmaceutical giant, when the company was strongly criticised in 2016 over hiking the price of one of its best-selling drugs. Previous findings on the presence and articulation of apologetic discourse in corporate communication correlated problematic context – the financial crisis – with texts – annual company reports. The rationale underlying this paper is the same as a strong relationship between controversial issues – in this case bioethical issues – and discursive outcomes was expected also in a different field of investigation.