This report reviews the important role of medicines in health systems, describes recent trends in pharmaceutical expenditure and financing, and summarises the approaches used by OECD countries to determine coverage and pricing. It then highlights current issues for policy makers, such as the...

Pharmaceutical policy making raises particular challenges in reconciling key objectives for health policy, such as ensuring affordable access to the latest effective drugs, with other important policy considerations, such as providing support to a valuable national industry. Unusually among...

Over the past few years, Canada and the United States have been experiencing an opioid crisis as a result of problematic opioid use fueled by the emergence of synthetic opioids such as fentanyl and carfentanil. Problematic opioid use is also spreading in other OECD countries, due to the upward...

Pharmacogenetics helps us understand the relationship between an individual’s genetic make-up and the way medicines work for each person. This book reviews the use of pharmacogenetics across all stages of the health innovation cycle from research through to uptake by doctors and patients. It...