Science-Based Initiatives against Dangerous or Useless Drugs

Abstract

Rsearchers at most centers for either pharmaceutical or pharmacological esearch keep their heads in the lab and do not consider it their business how companies promote the drugs they develop or how doctors actually prescribe them, even if they know about the distorting commercial practices often featured in the lay and medical press. But since the Mario Negri Institute is dedicated to basic and clinical pharmacology for better patient care, its leaders pioneered ways to replace “bad pharma” with “good pharma” by reducing the thousands of medicines that drug companies put on the market after World War II without evidence of patient benefit and with risks of harm. They worked to eliminate bad drugs and limit doctors to prescribing good ones more rationally. This chapter describes some remarkable efforts by research leaders at the Institute to apply clinical pharmacology to whole regional, national, and international formularies for prescribing.