As the most common health-care intervention, prescription drug use shares the most important characteristics of the health-care system in the United States. When everything works well, it makes possible breathtakingly successful applications of science to the prevention and cure of human suffering. But everything doesn't always work well.

Pharmaceutical Public Policy provides the understanding and framework required for effective organization, financing, and delivery of pharmaceutical products and services. It supplies an overview of the policy process as well as the roles of...