Politics of Pharmaceutical Policy Reform

Elize Massard da Fonseca is a postdoctoral fellow in Public Administration and Management at the Getulio Vargas Foundation (FGV) in Sao Paulo, Brazil. She holds a doctoral degree in Social Policy from the University of Edinburgh, United Kingdom, and a doctoral degree in Public Health from Fiocruz. Her research interests are in the areas of pharmaceutical regulation and health politics.

• Introduction.- Contextualising drug regulation.- The generic drug reform in Brazil.- Assessing the generic drug regulatory process in the 2000s: governmental intervention, market demand and local pharmaceutical industries.- Public production of medicines and HIV/AIDS activists: new actors in the generic drug regulatory process.- Conclusion.- Postscript.- Index.- References.- Annex - Notes on research methodology

"Brazil, in public health as in so many other things, is much discussed but frequently misunderstood. For all the ink spilt discussing access to medicines, astonishingly little work has investigated the actual politics and effects of Brazil's famously innovative access to medicines policy. Fonseca's pathbreaking book solves this problem, bringing Brazilian politics into the analysis. She brings the rigor and comparative perspective of political economy together with deep research to map out the political economy of a policy shift that changed global debates. This book should be required reading in global and comparative health policy, for very few are so rigorous in their understanding of the politics of pharmaceuticals, global health, or Brazil". -- Scott L. Greer, University of Michigan and European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies. "This book is based on extensive research on the politics of pharmaceutical regulations in Brazil, a subject that has received insufficient attention but will be of increasing importance. Reconciling the objectives of stimulating competition to achieve lower prices of drugs, and raising quality standards, is a major challenge faced by regulators in developing countries throughout the world. Brazil has been a leader in this regard. Fonseca's astute analysis of the Brazilian case provides key insights for understanding these processes". -- Ken Shadlen, London School of Economics and Political Science