Public concerns about the regulation of the pharmaceutical industry have intensified in recent years. Paradoxically, these concerns center on the over-consumption of medicines of dubious benefit in Western societies and lack of access to essential medicines in the Global South. By demonstrating how the analysis of pharmaceutical drug regulation can provide rich insights into the operation of power and politics in contemporary society, the contributors challenge the prevailing construction of drug regulation as a sphere of “policy without politics” and suggest alternative ways of regulating medicines. Just two of the central questions that are explored in this book include: what are the implications for health that arise from the existing systems of pharmaceutical drug regulation?; what do the existing systems of drug regulation reveal about the power of transnational pharmaceutical corporations to shape regulatory and other policies? The importance attached to placing the Irish regulatory system in its international context is reflected in the inclusion of chapters that consider regulatory trends in Australia, Canada and Britain, and chapters that address the implications of World Trade Organisation and EU regulatory policies.