Historically, new drug introductions have played a central role in medical progress and the availability of cost-effective therapies. Nevertheless, public policy toward pharmaceuticals has been characterized in recent times by increasingly stringent regulatory controls, shorter effective patent terms, and increased encouragement of generic product usage. This has had an adverse effect on the in...

Nevertheless, it is clear that some initial steps that will change the institutional foundations of health care financing have been taken. The introduction of the federal fund and the (however limited and contested) convergence between SHI and PHI point to an evolutionary change from competitive corporatism to the marketisation of health care (financing), accompanied by a changing role for stat...

OBJECTIVES AND METHODS Pharmaceutical policy is an increasingly costly, essential and challenging component of health system management. We sought to identify priority pharmaceutical policy issues in Canada and to translate them into research priorities using key informant interviews, stakeholder surveys and a deliberative workshop. RESULTS WE FOUND CONSENSUS ON OVERARCHING POLICY GOALS: to p...

Today, the goals of pharmaceutical policy and medical practice are often undermined due to institutional corruption — that is, widespread or systemic practices, usually legal, that undermine an institution’s objectives or integrity. In this symposium, 16 articles investigate the corruption of pharmaceutical policy, each taking a different look at the sources of corruption, how it occurs, and wh...

Background: The increase in R&D and upward trend of R&D/pharmaceutical sales has occurred despite government controlled pharmaceutical price reduction in Japan. This paper identifies the effect of the government’s price control policy on pharmaceutical innovation and evaluates the influence of new chemical entities (NCE) on health

The formulation of pharmaceutical policy is a critical component of healthcare planning, made more important given that medicines are the ubiquitous technology in the diagnosis, treatment and prevention of disease and constitute a significant proportion of health care expenditure. Pharmacists need to inform policy development that will, in its implementation, offer opportunity to deliver greate...

BACKGROUND Sex and gender sensitive inquiry is critical in pharmaceutical policy due to the sector's historical connection with women's health issues and due to the confluence of biological, social, political, and economic factors that shape the development, promotion, use, and effects of medicinal treatments. A growing number of research bodies internationally have issued laws, guidance or enc...

OBJECTIVES We describe a key informant study that invited national medicines policy leads for the European Union member states to self-assess the level of implementation of medicines adherence initiatives in their country and the adequacy of that implementation. Interviews with medicines policy leads enabled in-depth understanding of the variation in adherence support across nations and the way...

Health care systems spend a relatively high percentage of their resources on the purchase of medicines, and the poor spend a disproportionate amount of their income on pharmaceuticals. There is ample evidence in the literature that drugs are very poorly used. World Bank-led health reforms aim at improving equity, efficiency, quality, and users' satisfaction, and it will be difficult to achieve ...