Essential information on more than 1,200 prescription and nonprescription medicines, including generics.

From the Pulitzer Prize–winning New York Times reporter who first exposed the roots of the opioid epidemic and the secretive world of the Sackler family behind Purdue Pharma, Pain Killer is the celebrated landmark story of corporate greed and government negligence that inspired an upcoming Netflix series. “This is the book that started it all. Barry Meier is a heroic reporter and Pain Killer is a muckraking classic.”—Patrick Radden Keefe, author of Empire of Pain Between 1999 and 2017, an estimated 250,000 Americans died from overdoses involving prescription painkillers, a plague ignited by Purdue Pharma’s aggressive marketing of OxyContin. Families, working class and wealthy, have been torn apart, businesses destroyed, and public officials pushed to the brink. Meanwhile, the drugmaker’s owners, Raymond and Mortimer Sackler, whose names adorn museums worldwide, made enormous fortunes from the commercial success of OxyContin. In Pain Killer, Barry Meier tells the story of how Purdue turned OxyContin into a billion-dollar blockbuster. Powerful narcotic painkillers, or opioids, were once used as drugs of last resort for pain sufferers. But Purdue launched an unprecedented marketing campaign claiming that the drug’s long-acting formulation made it safer to use than traditional painkillers for many types of pain. That illusion was quickly shattered as drug abusers learned that crushing an Oxy could release its narcotic payload all at once. Even in its prescribed form, Oxy proved fiercely addictive. As OxyContin’s use and abuse grew, Purdue concealed what it knew from regulators, doctors, and patients. Here are the people who profited from the crisis and those who paid the price, those who plotted in boardrooms and those who tried to sound alarm bells. A country doctor in rural Virginia, Art Van Zee, took on Purdue and warned officials about OxyContin abuse. An ebullient high school cheerleader, Lindsey Myers, was reduced to stealing from her parents to feed her escalating Oxy habit. A hard-charging DEA official, Laura Nagel, tried to hold Purdue executives to account. In Pain Killer, Barry Meier breaks new ground in his decades-long investigation into the opioid epidemic. He takes readers inside Purdue to show how long the company withheld information about the abuse of OxyContin and gives a shocking account of the Justice Department’s failure to alter the trajectory of the opioid epidemic and protect thousands of lives. Equal parts crime thriller, medical detective story, and business exposé, Pain Killer is a hard-hitting look at how a supposed wonder drug became the gateway drug to a national tragedy.

Get an invaluable view of the impact of economics and politics on pharmaceuticals in the United States Pharmacy and pharmaceutical drug use are highly regulated and the various regulatory forces interact with diverse goals. Pharmaceutical Public Policy is a comprehensive review of the legislation, trends, business developments, and policy interpretations that have shaped drug use during the last 50 years. This unique single source explains drug regulatory activity, the major insurance and payment systems, and the impact of economics and politics on drug use in the United States. Leading experts provide a thorough and objective look at public policy issues, making this text perfect for upper level undergraduate and graduate level pharmacy, medical, and public health educators and students. Pharmacists and pharmacy students must learn more than just the physical sciences and clinical aspects of the pharmaceutical industry. The rationale for policies, rules, and regulations is integral to understanding how to best serve patients and make the entire pharmaceutical sector more equitable and cost-effective. Pharmaceutical Public Policy examines the most pressing issues facing the industry, including control of the rising costs for drugs and ensuring correct drug usage by patients. This insightful text offers an in depth perspective of the policies and the debates that surround them. Chapters are well-referenced and many include helpful figures and tables to illustrate facts and ideas. Topics in Pharmaceutical Public Policy include: pharmacy law and regulation Medicare and prescription drug coverage FDA drug approval process Medicaid and prescription drugs public health pharmacy Department of Veterans Affairs pharmacy programs Department of Defense pharmacy programs innovative state drug program practices state and federal regulation of pharmacy the future of the pharmaceutical industry managed care pharmacy PBM’s (pharmacy benefit managers) risk minimization importation and reimportation biotechnology and pharmacogenetics policy and issues product promotion competition between drugs drug insurance design patient compliance abuse of prescription drugs health care systems and insurance in Europe much more Pharmaceutical Public Policy is a one-of-a-kind resource that explains just who the players are and the complexity of the issues that are examined in most pharmaceutical policy debates, and is perfect for pharmacy students, educators, other health professionals, trade association leaders, and policymakers.

Thanks to remarkable advances in modern health care attributable to science, engineering, and medicine, it is now possible to cure or manage illnesses that were long deemed untreatable. At the same time, however, the United States is facing the vexing challenge of a seemingly uncontrolled rise in the cost of health care. Total medical expenditures are rapidly approaching 20 percent of the gross domestic product and are crowding out other priorities of national importance. The use of increasingly expensive prescription drugs is a significant part of this problem, making the cost of biopharmaceuticals a serious national concern with broad political implications. Especially with the highly visible and very large price increases for prescription drugs that have occurred in recent years, finding a way to make prescription medicinesâ€"and health care at largeâ€"more affordable for everyone has become a socioeconomic imperative. Affordability is a complex function of factors, including not just the prices of the drugs themselves, but also the details of an individual's insurance coverage and the number of medical conditions that an individual or family confronts. Therefore, any solution to the affordability issue will require considering all of these factors together. The current high and increasing costs of prescription drugsâ€"coupled with the broader trends in overall health care costsâ€"is unsustainable to society as a whole. Making Medicines Affordable examines patient access to affordable and effective therapies, with emphasis on drug pricing, inflation in the cost of drugs, and insurance design. This report explores structural and policy factors influencing drug pricing, drug access programs, the emerging role of comparative effectiveness assessments in payment policies, changing finances of medical practice with regard to drug costs and reimbursement, and measures to prevent drug shortages and foster continued innovation in drug development. It makes recommendations for policy actions that could address drug price trends, improve patient access to affordable and effective treatments, and encourage innovations that address significant needs in health care.