Jody Hunter and Jim Boling, two managers at Georgia- Pacific Corporation, a paper manufacturer, disagree about continuing the company’s membership in Business for Affordable Medicine (BAM), a coalition of state governors and corporations supporting a U.S. Senate bill that would bring generic versions of brand-name drugs to market more quickly. Experts predict that the bill, if adopted by Congress, will reduce total spending on prescription drugs by $60 billion over the next ten years. Hunter, Georgia- Pacific’s director of health and welfare, strongly supports the bill. Georgia-Pacific’s prescription drug costs for employees increased by 21 percent in the last year alone. If the bill becomes law, the resultant drop in health-care costs will save Georgia-Pacific large amounts of money (in addition to saving money for other people across the country who need prescriptions).
Eli Lilly & Co., a large, name-brand pharmaceutical firm for which Georgia-Pacific is the leading supplier of paper goods and packaging, has been pressuring the paper company to withdraw from BAM. Boling, a Georgia- Pacific sales manager, fears that “we may lose our business position if this is not managed correctly.” Boling points out that Lilly plans to launch six new compounds next year, “which could mean millions of dollars in paper business for us.” In one e-mail, Boling mentioned that a three-year agreement with Lilly “is sitting on the Procurement Managers [sic] desk now to be signed.” Should Georgia- Pacific withdraw from BAM?
Is it ethical for Lilly to use its business relationship to try to force Georgia-Pacific to withdraw?