Pharmaceuticals is a relatively large and mature industry, and of growing significance. The industry has stimulated extensive research on determinants of its growth and development. Specifically, the distribution of firm size has attracted significant attention, due to its relevance as an indicator of degree of industrial concentration. A large part of this literature has focused, since the ear...

The World Trade Organization's Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) set global minimum standards for the protection of intellectual property, substantially increasing and expanding intellectual-property rights, and generated clear gains for the pharmaceutical industry and the developed world. The question of whether TRIPS generates gains for developing coun...

The importance of natural products in therapeutics has been generally recognized from immemorial time. The Amerindians' knowledge of hallucinogenic plants used for their religious rituals, as well as the aphrodisiac properties of several potions prepared from several plant species, have accompanied man for millennia. Throughout the ages, the search for the well-being and for the pleasure has al...

Facilities involved in the manufacture of pharmaceutical products are an under-investigated source of pharmaceuticals to the environment. Between 2004 and 2009, 35 to 38 effluent samples were collected from each of three wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) in New York and analyzed for seven pharmaceuticals including opioids and muscle relaxants. Two WWTPs (NY2 and NY3) receive substantial flows...

a simple, precise, rapid and low-cost potentiometric method for diclofenac determination in pharmaceuticals is proposed. a new diclofenac-sensitive electrode was constructed by incorporating the diclofenac ion pair complex with butyl rhodamine b into graphite matrix. the electrode exhibited a linear response over the concentration range of 1 × 10-4 – 5 × 10-2 mol l-1, a detection limit of 3.9×1...

Introduction. In the United States, dietary supplement (DS) use is common, often takes place outside of the purview of health care providers, and may involve DS in combination with pharmaceuticals. This situation has led to concerns about interactions between DS and pharmaceuticals, as well as the risks from polypharmacy and polysupplement use. Methods. We used data from the Midlife in the US s...

With the costs of pharmaceuticals increasing, steps need to be taken to modernize the approach process in order to reduce the cost of developing new medicines and increase the availability of new and better pharmaceuticals.

Global pharmaceutical consumption is rising with the growing and ageing human population and more intensive food production. Recent studies have revealed pharmaceutical residues in a wide range of ecosystems and organisms. Environmental concentrations are often low, but pharmaceuticals typically are designed to have biological effects at low doses, acting on physiological systems that can be ev...

Occurrence and removal efficiencies of fifteen pharmaceuticals were investigated in a conventional municipal wastewater treatment plant in Michigan. Concentrations of these pharmaceuticals were determined in both wastewater and sludge phases by a high-performance liquid chromatograph coupled to a tandem mass spectrometer. Detailed mass balance analysis was conducted during the whole treatment p...

BACKGROUND There is increasing concern that pollution from pharmaceuticals used in human medicine and agriculture can be a threat to the environment. Little is known, however, if people are aware that pharmaceuticals may have a detrimental influence on the environment. The present study examines people's risk perception and choices in regard to environmental risks of pharmaceuticals used in hum...