The World Medicines Situation - 2nd edition

Overview

This second review of the world medicines situation (first published in 1988 as The World Drug Situation) presents the available evidence on global production, research and development, international trade and consumption of pharmaceuticals. In addition, it draws on the most recent surveys and studies in WHO Member States to examine the state of national medicines policy. The aim is to provide an easily accessible source of information on the pharmaceutical situation at global and national levels.

Although the text is based on and around the available data, these data pose several challenges. For example, reliable data on the large pharmaceutical markets in the world’s most populous countries, the People’s Republic of China and India, are in short supply. Trade, production, expenditure and consumption data all come from different sources. In addition, the use of monetary values, rather than an indicator of volume, gives a distorted picture of production and consumption since it fails to reflect the scale of global consumption of traditional medicines and low-priced generics (both branded and non-branded).