Good Pharma. The Public-health Model of the Mario Negri Institute

Good Pharma describes a working model of institutional integrity that bypasses the many ways that commercialized research has corrupted transparent science, valid results, and trustworthy clinical practice. It is the answer to Goldacre's book, Bad Pharma: ethical research without commercial distortions that mislead doctors and patients. On the basis of key concepts in sociology, the authors describe the history of a remarkable institute that has elevated medical research and worked out solutions to the troubling practices of commercial pharmaceutical research. This extended case history of the Mario Negri Institute describes how a brilliant young researcher, Silvio Garattini, and a boldly imaginative philanthropist, Mario Negri, conceived of an independent, ethics-based research institute to develop better medicines for patients rather than medicines better for patenting. Drawing on its public health model, the Institute developed the first methods for founding the WHO Essential Medicines List, as well as regional and national formularies of effective, safe drugs. It was an early partner with the Cochrane Collaboration, and it campaigned to reduce secrecy and commercial influences on how drugs are approved. The public health model of the Mario Negri Institute offers a breakthrough, already-successful way to develop better drugs at much lower prices than today's costly, wasteful drug, with few benefits for patients. An important book to provoke discussion in global public health, science and technology, history, and ethics courses.