Immunosuppressive medicines are characterized by specific pharmacokinetic profile which requires therapy monitoring by means of measuring their blood concentrations. Therapy monitoring, by means of determining blood concentration of the medicine, enables application of an optimal individual immunosuppressive therapy. Due to its variable pharmacokinetics, and small therapeutic index and potentia...

Perspectives In recent years, there has been much work done due to increasing recognition that children need better medicines. The United States of America 1,2 and the Euro-pean Union 3 have adopted regulations to encourage research and development of medicines for children; the World Health Organization (WHO) has been promoting " Make medicines child size " ; and researchers and academics are ...

BACKGROUND Equitable access to essential medicines is a major challenge for policy-makers world-wide, including Central and Eastern European countries. Member States of the European Union situated in Central and Eastern Europe have publicly funded pharmaceutical reimbursement systems that should promote accessibility and affordability of, at least essential medicines. However, there is no knowl...

OBJECTIVE To explore the perspectives of a diverse group of stakeholders engaged in medicines decision making around what constitutes an "essential" medicine, and how the Essential Medicines List (EML) concept functions in a high income country context. METHODS In-depth qualitative semi-structured interviews were conducted with 32 Australian stakeholders, recognised as decision makers, leader...

GENERAL OBJECTIVE To evaluate the understanding and perceptions of generic medicines among final-year Doctor of Pharmacy students in Karachi, Pakistan. METHODS A 23-item survey instrument that included a question on the bioequivalence limits and Likert-type scale questions regarding the understanding and perceptions of generic medicines among the students was executed. Cronbach's alpha was fo...

BACKGROUND Many patients even those with health insurance pay out-of-pocket for medicines. We investigated the availability and prices of essential medicines in the Boston area. METHODS Using the WHO/HAI methodology, availability and undiscounted price data for both originator brand (OB) and lowest price generic (LPG) equivalent versions of 25 essential medicines (14 prescription; 11 over-the...

Introduction: Although availability of essential medicines is one of the most important objectives of national medicines' policies, the unavailability of essential medicines remains a major problem for poor countries. Objective: The study was carried out to measure availability and duration of out of stock of essential medicines in Sudan. Method: The study was carried out using the World Health...

This study assessed agreement between two measures of medicine use, self-report by mail and pharmaceutical claims data, for a national sample (N = 4687) of older women aged 79 to 84 in 2005, from the Australian Longitudinal Study on Women’s Health. Medicines used for common chronic diseases in older people were selected, with pharmaceutical claims data retrieval periods of three and six months....

OBJECTIVES (1) To evaluate the prevalence of polypharmacy (5-9 medicines) and excessive polypharmacy (10+ medicines) and (2) to determine associated demographic and clinical characteristics in an ageing population with intellectual disabilities (IDs). DESIGN Observational cross-sectional study. SETTING Wave One (2009/2010) of the Intellectual Disability Supplement to the Irish Longitudinal ...