Pharmaceutical policy and drug utilization: Definitions, concepts, and taxonomies

Pharmaceutical policy is in many aspects related to and embedded in the overall health policy in that it addresses several issues which are also of relevance for other health technologies, services, and processes. In addition, it has specific aspects, including vocal stakeholders such as the pharmaceutical industry and pharmacists as a profession. International frameworks define and operationalise the overarching policy objective of ensuring patient access to medicines. With regard to medicines, the term “market access” is frequently used, in particular by the pharmaceutical industry, to describe the market launch and subsequent market shares for their products from a company’s perspective. The pharmaceutical value chain describes the life cycle of a medicine, which is subject to different policy actions by regulators, policy-makers, and other stakeholders in the public and private sectors. Some of the stakeholders may own or manage important quantitative data which can be useful for conducting drug utilization research.