Towards a socio-political understanding of the pharmaceutical sector

Abstract

MUCH IS AT STAKE in scientific and technological, and economic and political, processes pertaining to the biosciences and pharmaceuticals. The value of the global drug industry is approaching US$500 billion while the health needs of the developing countries are of staggering proportion. From an Australian perspective, opportunities and constraints of medicinal drug policy are associated closely with rapid and possibly fundamental shifts occurring within the worldwide pharmaceutical industry, as well as global regulatory developments. Several articles in this special issue of Australian Health Review provide insight into these global dynamics. Other contributions explore policy themes of particular interest to an Australian readership. Writers on medicinal drug policy and regulation come from a variety of disciplines, including business and management, health and social policy studies, economics, sociology, and political science. The range and volume of the specialised literature on this sector reflects its social and economic significance and its unmatched complexity in terms of interdependencies between business, government, professions, and civil society actors. Most articles in this issue have an emphasis on politics and sociology ? this may compensate somewhat for the dominance usually exercised by economists in framing social science research and policy debate on pharmaceuticals.