Dr. Srinivasan is a senior scientist working for a reputed biotechnology company known for its cutting-edge research in pharmaceuticals. Dr. Srinivasan is heading a research team working on a new drug aimed at treating a rapidly spreading variant of a new viral infectious disease. The disease has been rapidly spreading across the world and the cases reported in the country are increasing. There is huge pressure on Dr. Srinivasan's team to expedite the trials for the drug as there is significant market for it, and the company wants to get the first-mover advantage in the market. During a team meeting, some senior team members suggest some shortcut for expediting the clinical trials for the drug and for getting the requisite approvals. These include manipulating data to exclude some negative outcomes and selectively reporting positive results, foregoing the process of informed consent and using compounds already patented by a rival company, rather than developing one's own component. Dr. Srinivasan is not comfortable taking such shortcuts, at the same time he realises meeting the targets is impossible without using these means. (a) What would you do in such a situation? (b) Examine your options and consequences in the light of the ethical questions involved. (c) How can data ethics and drug ethics save humanity at large in such a scenario?

Key learnings from their answer

• ›Case studies are framed against live news and closed with theory: Q7 is mapped explicitly to the Puja Khedkar forged-certificate case and shut with Gandhi's 'Education without character is sin', while Q8 (tribal clinical trials) closes on Kant's 2nd categorical imperative and Gandhi's 'science without humanity' -> tie a case study to a current real parallel for relevance and round it off with a named ethical principle for weight.
• ›Philosophers are operationalised, not name-dropped: Q1b contrasts Mill's qualitative utilitarianism, Kant's categorical imperatives and Gandhi's 'means over ends' and then tests them on GST, AFSPA and Chauri-Chaura 1922; Q3c runs Rawls' Veil of Ignorance into Article 326 adult suffrage and PMJAY -> when you cite a thinker, immediately ground them in a real Indian policy or event so the theory does administrative work instead of decorating the page.