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Australian Health Review Australian Health Review Society
Journal of the Australian Healthcare & Hospitals Association
RESEARCH ARTICLE

Pharmaceuticals, the state and the global harmonisation process

John Abraham

Australian Health Review 28(2) 150 - 160
Published: 2004

Abstract

This article examines how regulatory agencies? mission to protect and promote public health, enshrined in legislation, has been shaped and limited by commitments to the commercial interests of the pharmaceutical industry. It is argued that the regulatory state has become largely a ?competition state? which considers its primary role to be the maintenance of industry?s competitive position in world markets. By examining regulatory developments across the EU, Japan and the US, I shall explain how the competition state became a building block for the global harmonisation process. To legitimise the global harmonisation process in terms of their mission to protect and promote public health, regulators claim that it does not lower safety standards and will accelerate the availability of pharmaceutical innovations to patients who need them. However, evidence is presented to suggest that these legitimising claims are not tenable.

https://doi.org/10.1071/AH040150

© AHHA 2004

Committee on Publication Ethics

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