A medication is a drug used to diagnose, cure, treat, or prevent disease. Drug therapy (pharmacotherapy) is an important part of the medical field and relies on the science of pharmacology for continual advancement and on pharmacy for appropriate management.
The incremental cost-effectiveness ratio (ICER) is a statistic used in cost-effectiveness analysis to summarise the cost-effectiveness of a health care intervention. It is defined by the difference in cost between two possible interventions, divided by the difference in their effect. It represents the average incremental cost associated with 1 additional unit of the measure of effect. The ICER can be estimated as:
Prescription drug prices in the United States have been among the highest in the world. The high cost of prescription drugs became a major topic of discussion in the new millennium, leading up to the U.S. health care reform debate of 2009, and received renewed attention in 2015. High prescription drug prices have been attributed to government-granted monopolies to manufacturers and organizations lacking ability to negotiate prices.
A prescription drug is a pharmaceutical drug that legally requires a medical prescription to be dispensed. In contrast, over-the-counter drugs can be obtained without a prescription. The reason for this difference in substance control is the potential scope of misuse, from drug abuse to practicing medicine without a license and without sufficient education. Different jurisdictions have different definitions of what constitutes a prescription drug.
The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) is an executive non-departmental public body of the Department of Health in the United Kingdom, which publishes guidelines in four areas:
The Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS) is a program of the Australian Government that provides subsidised prescription drugs to residents of Australia, as well as certain foreign visitors covered by a Reciprocal Health Care Agreement. The PBS seeks to ensure that Australian residents have affordable and reliable access to a wide range of necessary medicines. The PBS has faced increased scrutiny as its cost has increased. The scheme assumes responsibility for the cost of drugs to patients in the community setting rather than while in hospital which is the responsibility of each state and territory. Together with Medicare the PBS is a key component of health care in Australia.
Vertex Pharmaceuticals, Inc. is an American biopharmaceutical company based in Boston, Massachusetts.
The NHS treatments blacklist is an informal name for a list of medicines and procedures which will not be funded by public money except in exceptional cases. These include but are not limited to procedures which the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) has ruled of limited effectiveness and particular brand name medicines. In 2017 there was a proposal for 3,200 over the counter (OTC) drugs to be restricted and 18 procedures to be added to the list. This generated some controversy amongst doctors with some arguing that OTC should be blacklisted instead, and others believing the move didn't take into account individual patient needs.
Pharmaceutical policy is a branch of health policy that deals with the development, provision and use of medications within a health care system. It embraces drugs, biologics, vaccines and natural health products. Pharmaceutical policy includes:
A pharmacy is a retail shop which provides prescription drugs, among other products. At the pharmacy, a pharmacist oversees the fulfillment of medical prescriptions and is available to give advice on their offerings of over-the-counter drugs. A typical pharmacy would be in the commercial area of a community.
At its most basic level, a formulary is a list of medicines. Traditionally, a formulary contained a collection of formulas for the compounding and testing of medication. Today, the main function of a prescription formulary is to specify particular medications that are approved to be prescribed at a particular hospital, in a particular health system, or under a particular health insurance policy. The development of prescription formularies is based on evaluations of efficacy, safety, and cost-effectiveness of drugs.
Automatic Generic Substitution is a proposal by the Department of Health (DH) whereby in January 2010 pharmacists could be obliged to substitute a generic version of a medication even if the prescriber had written the prescription for a specific brand, as part of a new deal on drug pricing.
The Faculty of Pharmaceutical Medicine (FPM) is a Faculty of the three Royal Colleges of Physicians of the United Kingdom. It is a UK-based professional membership organisation with over 1,500 members; physicians with a professional interest in the speciality of pharmaceutical medicine, the science of discovering, developing and testing new drugs, their regulation, and monitoring them for safety both during development and when they are prescribed. The Faculty is a registered charity and ultimately exists to bring about an improvement in health in patients and the general population.
Pharmaceutical fraud involves activities that result in false claims to insurers or programs such as Medicare in the United States or equivalent state programs for financial gain to a pharmaceutical company. There are several different schemes used to defraud the health care system which are particular to the pharmaceutical industry. These include: Good Manufacturing Practice (GMP) Violations, Off Label Marketing, Best Price Fraud, CME Fraud, Medicaid Price Reporting, and Manufactured Compound Drugs. Examples of fraud cases include the GlaxoSmithKline $3 billion settlement, Pfizer $2.3 billion settlement, and Merck $650 million settlement. Damages from fraud can be recovered by use of the False Claims Act, most commonly under the qui tam provisions which rewards an individual for being a "whistleblower", or relator (law).
Bad Pharma: How Drug Companies Mislead Doctors and Harm Patients is a book by the British physician and academic Ben Goldacre about the pharmaceutical industry, its relationship with the medical profession, and the extent to which it controls academic research into its own products. It was published in the UK in September 2012 by the Fourth Estate imprint of HarperCollins, and in the United States in February 2013 by Faber and Faber.
The Cancer Drugs Fund (CDF) was introduced in England in 2011. It was established in order to provide a means by which National Health Service (NHS) patients in England could get cancer drugs rejected by National Institute for Health and Care Excellence because they were not cost effective. Its establishment was confirmed by the UK government's coalition agreement in 2010, and by the White Paper, Equity and excellence – Liberating the NHS.
Pharmacy in the United Kingdom has been an integral part of the National Health Service since it was established in 1948. Unlike the rest of the NHS pharmacies are largely privately provided apart from those in hospitals, and even these are now often privately run.
