Pharmaceutical Economics and Policy,   ISBN:9780195300956

Customer Rating: 

It's almost ludicrous to claim this book is updated. I read the older version (published around 1997) because it was the only one that was available at my University library. I thought it would be perfect as research for an essay I was planning on writing, so I ordered the updated 2007 version assuming it would be essentially the same format but with updated statistics and information. Anyway long story short I had the unpleasant experience of being reminded that 'assume' makes and a** out of u and me. The 2007 version had hardly been updated. Save for a few new chapters it is almost exactly the same. The author still cites the exact same studies from the late 1980s and early 90s, some with extremely small sample sizes, as if these are still relevant, as well as providing a plethora of old statistics that ceased to be of any use 6 or 7 years ago (unless you happen to be a historian).

In short this book can hardly be called a scholarly achievement. It's fine if you want a brief overview of the history and economic functioning of the pharmaceutical industry, without getting too hung up on whether the information is up-to-date, but if you want to use it to aid in writing an essay on microeconomics it will probably be a waste of your time and money. The author obviously did not put enough effort updating his book.

Another thing people might have a problem with is that the author tends to side with the pharmaceutical industry on most issues (ie pharmaceutical price controls are detrimental, the drug approval process is too strict etc.). I don't in principle have any problem with advocating free market solutions to economic problems, but some may be irked by the one-sided presentation.

Customer Rating: 

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...since its publication in 1997, for during the interval we've had (among other developments):

(1) The Food and Drug Administration Modernization Act (FDAMA '97),

(2) The promulgation of the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA) Code on Interactions with Healthcare Professionals (2002), and

(3) The federal Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) formally weighing in with their final "anti-kickback" guidance from the Office of their Inspector General (OIG), incidentally shutting the door between pharmaceuticals marketing and the drug manufacturers' "support" of continuing medical education (CME) on April 28, 2003.

(4) New concerns regarding drug safety issues (both pre- and post-marketing) have been raised by way of the COX-2 NSAID crisis, particularly by Merck's defalcations in the suppression of adverse events data in the 2000 publication of their VIGOR trial results (see Waxman's editorial in *The New England Journal of Medicine*, June 23, 2005;352[25]:2576-2578), and have invoked structural and procedural changes in the FDA's Office of New Drugs (OND) the end of which is not yet in sight.

(5) Medicare Part "D" has gone into effect, with NICE long-term implications for future impact upon the pharmaceutical industry in these United States.

Things have *changed,* folks. There's ten years' worth of critically important regulatory and pharmacoeconomic changes that neither the author nor the rest of the industry could have taken into consideration back when the galleys of this book were returned to the publisher. To the best of my knowledge, there is still no other source of information on the subject as ambitious (and as competently written) as is Dr. Schweitzer's work. Both author and publisher must certainly be aware of the fact that there is a need (and a definite market) for a new edition.
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Customer Rating: 

Met beaucoup d'emphase sur le point de vue international versus les États-Unis, propos de macro économie biens présentés.

Une seule lacune, les statistiques citées sont déjà bien obsolètes...

Customer Rating: 

I believe the book is useful for everyone in The Pharmaceutical Industry. It will be useful for reps, higher management, physicians, technicians, scientists, product and regulatory affairs managers and just about anyone who wants to "think outside the box" of their specific role within the industry. Despite its broad range the book is succinct, never vague, and contains a plethora of useful information. I came across this book without never having heard about the author and with the sole purpose of finding specific economic data. I found that and much more. What an astonishing surprise the book was. The book presents the most comprehensive and intelligently condensed information about the overall pharmaceutical market forces, that I saw recently. specific to the industry. For instance, the short Chapter (2) on marketing Pharmaceuticals offers more important data and contextual information than most books entirely dedicated to Pharmaceutical marketing. In a little more than 20 pages the author manages to provide useful information about sales forces management and economic analysis, including joint marketing, along with definitions about all types of promotional materials and relevant organizations for promotion of Pharmaceuticals, including Continuing Medical Education and the FDA's Division of Marketing. In the even shorter chapter on pricing, the author starts by cleverly laying out the fundamentals of supply and demand for Pharmaceuticals and goes on to quantitatively and contextually explain the worldwide differences. Overall the book has information just about any Pharmaceutical market topic; from all of the non-life sciences issues associated with pre-clinical development of drugs to the structure and future trends of the industry. All this information is easy to find because the book is simply organized in internal analysis (the industry) versus external analysis (consumer, market, public and private influential institutions). I'm truly impressed with the depth and range of knowledge displayed in this book, so much so that if I wasn't working for The Pharmaceutical Industry already I would approach Professor Schweitzer for a postdoctoral research.

Customer Rating: 

I commend the author's attempt to provide a comprehensive review of pharmaceutical economics and policy in less than three hundred pages. This book is an interesting read and is accessible to those of us who are not economists. However, I would not recommend this book to others due to the facts that (1) the author is inconsistent in referencing the literature and (2) he often fails to present alternative interpretations of the empirical evidence. For example, the author uses evidence of price discrimination to demonstrate the "importance of consumer demand" in the pricing of pharmaceuticals and, by extension, the presence of competition in the pharmaceutical market (pgs. 103-105). However, he fails to point out that price discrimination by pharmaceutical companies reduces consumer surplus, a direct benefit of competitive markets. In addition, the book contains many typos that may prove distracting to some readers.