Abundant literature is available on the spectrum of issues relevant to pharmaceutical policy---including regulation, pricing, financing, reimbursement, procurement, and distribution. What has been lacking is a practitioner's guide for navigating this complex field while considering the various challenges and limitations that characterize political reality. This book meets that need.<BR><BR>There is no "one-size-fits-all" approach to pharmaceutical policy. Even two countries with similar objectives may need to apply different sets of policies, depending on their starting positions, preexisting laws and regulations, perceptions among providers and patients, and implementation capacity. Developed countries may find it hard to reconcile industrial policy and innovation with cost containment in the health sector. Middle-income countries may have to bridge the divide between a demanding urban population and large numbers of poor people in peri-urban and rural areas. Low-income countries may struggle to provide basic essential drugs to their populations through inefficient delivery systems that are still largely state run, while their growing private markets may be flooded with drugs of dubious origin and quality. In each case, policy makers and implementing agencies need to select and combine their policy measures in a way that not only conceptually addresses the main problems but also is practically viable and sustainable.<BR><BR>A Practical Approach to Pharmaceutical Policy discusses the wide range of challenges facing policy makers, presents the current know-how, and provides specific examples of policy packages that can be used in defined circumstances. The book, which focuses on developing countries, equally addresses the issues faced by low-income and middle-income countries. It concludes with a prognosis of how things might evolve in the longer term, assuming convergence toward models that work to reduce the fragmentation of policies and enhance regulatory and economic efficiencies. Such an evolution to a sustainable platform would benefit all stakeholders, but particularly those who, as patients, do not have reliable access to effective and safe medicines.<BR><BR>A Practical Approach to Pharmaceutical Policy will be of interest to pharmaceutical policy makers and advisers in developing countries; people in related fields such as health financing, health service delivery, and health insurance management; representatives of the pharmaceutical industry and associations; academics and students of public health policy, pharmacy, and health economics; and undergraduate and graduate students in related fields.