Economists working in various facets of the pharmaceutical industry introduce the major concepts and principles of pharmacoeconomics, particularly emphasizing modeling, methodologies, and real-world data sources and applications. Their topics include the cost of illness, Markov modeling in decision analysis, cost-minimization analysis, budget impact analysis, some problems and assumptions in pharmacoeconomic analysis, patient-reported outcome measures, the use of pharmacoeconomics in drug reimbursement in selected anglophone countries, practical applications in disease management, computer-aided decision making from drug discovery to pharmocoecomonics, and speculating on the future challenges and value of the field. Annotation ©2010 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)