The Politics of Pharmaceutical Marketing Legislation in a Developing Country

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

1-1-1988

Description

In recent years, there has been a continual tendency by governments worldwide to impose regulatory controls on the marketing practices of multinational pharmaceutical firms. This trend is most evident in the developing countries, where the business conduct of the pharmaceutical industry has been subject to intense examination, particularly during the last two decades. This paper traces the political experience in one developing country, Pakistan, as a professed socialist government disallowed the use of brand names for pharmaceuticals and limited the products marketed by introducing a national formulary. An accounting of this experience can be valuable to governments contcmplating controls in similar pharmaceutical marketing environments and also to worldwide pharmaceutical companies, pharmaceutical middlemen, and doctors confronted with similar regulatory movements.

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