Office: 209 Kunkel

 Office Phone: (610) 330-5467

 Email: waters@lafayette.edu

This course may be used as an elective for the Health Care and Society minor.

Course Description: Pharmaceuticals provide an interface where science, technology, economics, and ethics interact, affecting our lives intimately. We will analyze complex issues surrounding drug discovery, development, testing, marketing, regulation, access and distribution. Students will gain comprehensive understanding of guiding principles from initial R&D through to post-market followup. We will examine challenges - public skepticism about research, rising budgets, diminishing breakthroughs, escalating side effects, declining affordability and access - by identifying both beneficial and detrimental consequences of pharmaceutical innovation.