Pharma-Funded Charity Touted ‘Higher Profits’ for Drugmakers
Nonprofit that works frequently with Big Pharma operates alongside its founders' marketing firm.
Seth Ginsberg at age 19 in October 2000. The arthritis patients’ group he founded, CreakyJoints, grew into a global charity that’s supported by a number of pharmaceutical companies.
Photographer: Tom Herde/The Getty Images/Boston GlobeAbout 20 years ago, a teenaged arthritis sufferer created an online community to help patients like himself. It grew into a global charity, with a lucrative side effect: It also helped drug companies make money.
The mission of the Global Healthy Living Foundation—improving the quality of life for those with chronic diseases—included motivating people to take, and keep taking, their prescription drugs. Doctors call that “compliance.’’ For the charity’s founder, no longer a teenager, it meant opportunity.