How Much Regulation is Desirable in Industry?

Abstract

Never having been an employee of the pharmaceutical industry, my approach is that of an outsider looking in, with all the advantages and disadvantages which that description entails. I shall try to avoid seeming just a voyeur or a eunuch giving lessons in the art of love and shall focus on what measures and approaches might maximise the public good as well as the ability of the drug industry to contribute to improvements in public health. Industry will continue to be our major source of important new medicines, so that its health and vigour are vital to the introduction of the new drugs so desperately needed to treat the sick.