OnPharma, the blog run by Agnes Shanley at Pharmaceutical Manufacturing, figures there’s one way to find out: conduct a survey. So she’s asking readers to write in - anonymously - with their war stories about day-to-day battles on the pharma front.

Given the title of the pub, it should not come as a surprise that the targeted audience will be folks who work in engineering, quality assurance and control, manufacturing, drug and process development, plant operations and maintenance. Don’t expect to hear from any sales reps.

Here’s the pitch: “Have you ever been in a situation where you had to make a choice between doing what was right and doing what was expedient? Please write in and tell us, and describe that situation generically. We’ll take these situations and turn them into a survey to ask our readers “what would you do?” Then we’ll publish the results.” This has potential.

Here’s the first example, a compelling one, no less:

“I was the package development chemist in charge of testing compatibility between drugs and packages. We had a problem with a new over-the-counter spray product. Within each package in a warehouse full of product, the liquid had turned from gold to pink, and a precipitate had formed, blocking the spray nozzles. A component in the gaskets of the spraying device was causing the problem (it was present in a concentration that was legal, but still higher than the original formula called for). I ‘failed’ the materials.

My director wanted me to say it was safe since the material in the gaskets was ’safe.’ I refused and told him to pass them on his own signature or do a tox screen on the product. He backed down and destroyed the batch, delaying commercial introduction of the product by three months.”

Was that the right thing to do? What if those three months meant a hit on quarterly earnings?

You can visit OnPharma here.[tags]Ethics[/tags]