There is plenty of controversy surrounding pharmaceuticals, but it cannot be denied that the pharmaceutical industry is both socially beneficial and profitable. Regulators are expected to ensure that the economic success of the industry does not come at the expense of public safety, yet they have also assumed a cooperative role by providing advice on regulation and by targeting unmet medical needs. Concerns over regulatory standards, conflicts of interest, and the manipulation of information on drug safety and effectiveness have led to public mistrust and a greater need for transparency between the pharmaceutical industry and government regulators.

Transparency, Power, and Influence in the Pharmaceutical Industry evaluates the progress made in holding the pharmaceutical industry responsible for creating transparency in the industry, from development to market. The contributors to this volume examine the various mechanisms introduced to make the regulatory process more informative and situate these efforts within the larger project of enhancing the safety of drugs, vaccines, and other products.

Katherine Fierlbeck is the McCulloch Professor of Political Science at Dalhousie University, with a cross-appointment as professor of Community Health and Epidemiology.

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Janice E. Graham is Professor and Canada Research Chair in Bioethics and Director of the Qualitative Research Commons & Studio (QuRCS) in the Faculty of Medicine at Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia.

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Professor Herder teaches primarily in the Faculty of Medicine, across the undergraduate and postgraduate curricula, on a variety of health law topics, including informed consent, patient-physician confidentiality, and regulation of the medical profession. Prior to joining the faculty at Dalhousie, he taught in the areas of bioethics and intellectual property law at Loyola University Chicago’s School of Law. Professor Herder’s research interests cluster around biomedical innovation policy, with particular focus on intellectual property law and practices connected to the commercialization of scientific research. As part of a three-year research project funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, Professor Herder (Principal Investigator) and a team of interdisciplinary researchers are currently collecting empirical evidence about the interrelationships between commercialization laws, policies, and practices, and emerging health researchers. Recent works include an article calling for greater transparency in drug regulation published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal, a paper detailing physician-industry relationships in Open Medicine, and an empirical analysis of patenting by academic researchers in IDEA: The Intellectual Property Law Review.

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