Harrison analyzes how the U.S. research pharmaceutical industry, faced with domestic political opposition to the prices it charged for prescription drugs, chose to pursue its policy goal of greater appropriability of its intellectual property through the institutions of foreign economic policymaking.

As Harrison explains, a new body of literature has developed to analyze the emergence of intellectual property as a major international trade issue. For many researchers, the inclusion of trade related intellectual property (TRIPS) into the Uruguay round of the General Agreement...