CURRENT EVENTS ASSIGNMENT 1 – BIOLOGY EXAM QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS

... On October 1, 2013, Reuter news posted an article by Ransdell Pierson about how the pharmaceutical company, Merck, is going to cut 8,500 more jobs. ... Merck, as some of you might know, is a global company with its headquarters in New Jersey. Merck is the world's third largest drug maker, but its sales of its products have slowed down due to competition with cheaper generic medications. Therefore, the company has had to cut 7,500 jobs and will continue to cut another 8,500. Merck expects to get most of their savings from research and development, by cutting research and development spending. ... This article relates to Biology because the discovery of new medicines is based upon the same basic scientific principles of research that we are learning are used on a daily basis in pharmaceutical companies. Merck's biggest selling drug helps people with diabetes and they also have medicines that treat many other conditions as well. They are cutting a total of 16,000 jobs and most of those jobs are from researching and developing new drugs for us to consume. ... Research and development is the most essential part of all pharmaceutical companies because research and development is the only way that we are able to identify new medicines to treat unmet medical needs. If there are less people researching and developing new drugs, it is likely no new drugs will be made to help people's health. Therefore, many people could possibly die because Merck is cutting all of these jobs from research and development. What is the importance of pharmaceutical companies in our everyday lives? The importance if pharmaceutical companies in our everyday live is that they provide us with drugs to improve our health and keep us alive Why do you think that Merck has lost a lot of sales due to cheaper generic drugs all around the world? Merck has lost a lot of sales due to cheaper generic drugs because since they are cheaper than Merck's products, many people may go for the cheaper drug to save money. People don't even have a say because the insurance may say to have the cheaper medicine. The article briefly mentioned that Merck is only focusing on drugs that will likely make them more money and stop other development of drug programs, how might that be bad for us in the future? It is bad because if they focus on one drug that sells more and stop other development drugs, that drug that they stopped developing could have been the solution to a disease or condition that we could have in the future. How do you think our grade 9 biology class is related to the pharmaceutical industry? Many of the basic scientific principles that we are learning, such as developing a hypothesis, conducting an experiment, and taking notes, are the exact same skills that are performed by professional scientists on a daily basis in their work. Gaining a deep understanding of protein structure - just as we have been discussing in class - is an important part of identifying potential new medicines.