Journal of Management Research and Review (JMRR)

Ethical Considerations in Pharmaceutical Marketing and Commercialization: Navigating Persuasion, Disclosure, And Regulatory Accountability

Awulu, Isaac, Williams, Imoiboho

5 September 2026 · Vol. 2, Issue 9, pp. 703-720

DOI: 10.65150/EP-jmrr/V2E9/2026-01

Abstract

Pharmaceutical marketing occupies a contested position between two legitimate but frequently opposing aims: the commercial imperative to generate return on investment in drug development, and the ethical obligation to protect patients whose therapeutic decisions carry consequences no ordinary consumer purchase carries. This paper examines how that tension has been reshaped during 2025 and 2026 by four simultaneous developments: an abrupt reversal in United States enforcement of direct-to-consumer (DTC) advertising rules, the migration of promotion into algorithmic and creator-driven digital channels, the emergence of manufacturer-owned direct-to-patient distribution that collapses the boundary between marketing and dispensing, and the introduction of most-favored-nation (MFN) pricing frameworks that recast commercialization strategy as an instrument of foreign and industrial policy. Drawing on regulatory documents, enforcement records, and peer-reviewed literature published between January 2025 and August 2026, the analysis identifies six cross-cutting ethical problems: the manipulation gap between persuasion and the exploitation of cognitive vulnerability, the disclosure paradox in which transparency substitutes for genuine understanding, the erosion of the learned intermediary as a functional safeguard, the misalignment of transparency instruments with the conduct they were designed to reveal, the global externalities of nationally framed pricing reforms, and the capability gap between stated ethical commitment and the organizational capacity to execute it. The paper argues that compliance-based ethics has become structurally inadequate, and proposes an accountability framework organized around channel-neutral duties, algorithmic auditability, verified clinical intermediation, and disclosure of the terms under which access is granted.

Keywords: pharmaceutical marketing ethics, direct-to-consumer advertising, commercialization, conflicts of interest, algorithmic targeting, drug pricing, health equity, regulatory governance.

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Awulu, Isaac, Williams, & Imoiboho (2026). Ethical Considerations in Pharmaceutical Marketing and Commercialization: Navigating Persuasion, Disclosure, And Regulatory Accountability. Journal of Management Research and Review, 2(9), 703-720. https://doi.org/10.65150/EP-jmrr/V2E9/2026-01

@article{Awulu2026,
  title   = {Ethical Considerations in Pharmaceutical Marketing and Commercialization: Navigating Persuasion, Disclosure, And Regulatory Accountability},
  author  = {Awulu and Isaac and Williams and Imoiboho},
  journal = {Journal of Management Research and Review},
  year    = {2026},
  volume  = {2},
  number  = {9},
  pages   = {703-720},
  doi     = {10.65150/EP-jmrr/V2E9/2026-01},
  url     = {https://doi.org/10.65150/EP-jmrr/V2E9/2026-01}
}

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