The future place of medicines in health care is both exciting and uncertain. With an aging population, an increasing number of chronic sick, a growing range of treatment options and a developing European market, the one certainty is that medication patterns will change radically over the next 15 years or so. How the future might look, in terms of quality, volume and cost of pharmacotherapy, is the subject of this report.
Four scenarios for the future are set out, all of which take account of already visible trends. Sobriety in sufficiency envisages rational and restrained...