Josh is a 7-year-old boy whose heart and kidneys are failing. He is losing the battle, and the end of his life is seemingly closer each day. However, if given a particular drug created by the company Chimerix, Josh could have a shot at living the life all 7-year-old boys dream about.

It seems like a simple fix. If Josh gets the needed medication, there is a high likelihood that his life could be saved. Why is it then that his parents are on national television trying to make their case and begging for the drug that could give their son more time to live?

Chimerix, the company that creates the needed drug, is currently going through the process of getting the medication approved by the Food and Drug Administration. This is an extremely pricey undertaking, and they claim that they simply do not have any money to spend on what they refer to as compassionate use patients. It costs roughly $50,000 to administer the drug to a single patient, and Chimerix is arguing that in order to get this drug on the market for everyone’s use they must sacrifice giving it to those who may need it along the way.

For the record, my knowledge about medicine is limited to the many Grey’s Anatomy episodes I have watched on Netflix, so I do not have enough credibility to argue about the medical side of things, but I do have credibility to talk about the moral aspects of this case.

I am a numbers driven individual a lot of the time, so I understand that business is business and in order for Chimerix to one day profit off this drug, it needs to get it on the market as soon as possible. However, when putting myself in Josh’s parents’ shoes, I cannot fathom knowing that there is a drug sitting in a lab somewhere that has the capability to save my child’s life I cannot access it.

What a helpless feeling, preparing for your child’s death. What is the purpose of creating a drug if not to save lives with it? We see this problem over and over again — drug companies have lost sight of their primary goal which is to help sick individuals who can’t help themselves. Instead of being driven by patient care and compassion they are driven strictly by profit.

Allowing money to be a primary factor in decision making becomes problematic when in the search of making the next dollar, we lose sight of our humanity. Chimerix has made its stance clear. It cannot save Josh’s life because it would be a speed bump in achieving its goal of getting this drug on the market.

I have no doubt that Chimerix is in a tough position and that it would have to sacrifice a lot of time and profit to save the life of a dying 7-year-old boy. However, if there is even the slightest possibility that it could manage to provide this family with the care it needs to go on living, then it needs to put its future salaries aside and consider the great impact this medicine would make for Josh and his family.