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The Constant Gardener film
Big pharma goes Hollywood with the release of The Constant Gardener. Max Gosney reports on an industry in the media eye
Big pharmaceutical firms are cast as the devil incarnate in the silver screen version of John Le Carre's The Constant Gardener.
Genocide, greed, murder and torture are all fair game as the film's fictional drug company KDH looks to cash in on a future tuberculosis (TB) outbreak by ensuring its treatment is first to market.
To speed up the process, KDH secretly tests its pipeline TB medicine Dypraxa on thousands of impoverished Kenyans as part of the country's HIV vaccination scheme.
The British government, which has been promised a UK manufacturing plant by KDH, joins the cover up when some of the human guinea pigs suffer fatal side effects from the drug.
But before the axis of evil can bank their bonuses they must fend off the efforts of the wife of a British diplomat who sniffs...