Global Pharmaceutical Policy: Ensuring Medicines for Tomorrow's World

ISBN-13: 9781848440906 Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing Publication date: 10/31/2009 Pages: 320 Product dimensions: 6.20(w) x 9.30(h) x 0.90(d) 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, mult