Pharmaceuticals play a central role in health care throughout the world. The pharmaceutical industry is beset with difficulties as increasing research and development expenditure yields fewer new treatments. Public and private budgets strain under the weight of high prices and limited access. The world's poor see little effort to address diseases prevalent in less affluent societies, while the world's wealthy are overusing prescription drugs, risking their health and wasting resources. The debate over health care reform and the ongoing global economic crisis form the backdrop for this extraordinarily timely examination of the global system for the development, production, distribution and use of medicines. The authors are acknowledged experts in the fields of pharmaceutical law and policy, with many years experience advising governments, multilateral organizations and policy-makers on issues involving innovation, access and use of medicines. Supported by a team of independent scientists, doctors and lawyers, they take an insightful look at the issues surrounding global regulation of the pharmaceutical sector, and offer pragmatic suggestions for reform. This book will be of interest to government policy-makers, members of industry, healthcare professionals, teachers, students and lawyers in the fields of public health, intellectual property and international trade.

Pharmaceuticals play a central role in health care throughout the world. The pharmaceutical industry is beset with difficulties as increasing research and development expenditure yields fewer new treatments. Public and private budgets strain under the weight of high prices and limited access. The world's poor see little effort to address diseases prevalent in less affluent societies, while the world's wealthy are overusing prescription drugs, risking their health and wasting resources. The debate over health care reform and the ongoing global economic crisis form the backdrop for this extraordinarily timely examination of the global system for the development, production, distribution and use of medicines. The authors are acknowledged experts in the fields of pharmaceutical law and policy, with many years experience advising governments, multilateral organizations and policy-makers on issues involving innovation, access and use of medicines. Supported by a team of independent scientists, doctors and lawyers, they take an insightful look at the issues surrounding global regulation of the pharmaceutical sector, and offer pragmatic suggestions for reform. This book will be of interest to government policy-makers, members of industry, healthcare professionals, teachers, students and lawyers in the fields of public health, intellectual property and international trade.

Most national governments have created agencies with the responsibility for deciding which medicinal drugs should be imported or manufactured and made available through their health systems. Many of these agencies were set up some twenty years ago in the wake of the thalidomide disaster. Since that time they have developed in quite different ways in response to national, cultural and economic influences. Their direct cost is very small in comparison to overall health budgets but their indirect effects, both in terms of health and the economy, can be substantial. In 1980 the World Health Organization (WHO) Regional Office for Europe set up a series of studies of drug evaluation in the European region aimed at determining the effects of the work of regulatory agencies on the availability of drugs, on the pharmaceutical industry, and on the health of individuals in the countries concerned. This book sets that work in a historical context and describes the sources of the data used by the project team and the methods used by WHO and others in assessing the work of these agencies and its repercussions for the community. Finally, it presents an analysis of current knowledge and the plans and prospects for future research. The first draft of this book was presented to a meeting of experts in the field of drug regulation at Oslo in March 1984, and the present text embodies the views and conclusions of that meeting.