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“The $800 Million Pill: The Truth behind the Cost of New Drugs” Selected as NetLibrary’s November eBook of the Month
Powerful exposé available online through more than 12,000 libraries
BOULDER, COLO.— NetLibrary, in partnership with The University of California Press, has selected “The $800 Million Pill: The Truth behind the Cost of New Drugs” as the November eBook of the Month. Praised as “…a masterful work of explanatory and investigative journalism” by The Atlantic Monthly, “The $800 Million Pill” will be provided with free, unlimited access November 1-30 to more than 12,000 member libraries and their patrons.
Written by Merrill Goozner, the former Chief Economics Correspondent at the Chicago Tribune, “The $800 Million Pill” offers a chilling glimpse into the Byzantine world of drug discovery. Drug companies insist that prices reflect the millions they invest in research and development. But Goozner argues that American taxpayers are in fact footing the bill twice: once by supporting government-funded research and again by paying astronomically high prices for prescription drugs.
Goozner goes on to demonstrate that almost all the important new drugs of the past quarter-century actually originated from research at taxpayer-funded universities and at the National Institutes of Health. He shows how drug innovation is driven by dedicated scientists intent on finding cures for diseases, not by pharmaceutical firms whose bottom line often takes precedence over the advance of medicine. A university biochemist who spent twenty years searching for a single blood protein that later became the best-selling biotech drug in the world, a government employee who discovered the causes for dozens of crippling genetic disorders, and the Department of Energy-funded research that made the Human Genome Project possible--these engrossing accounts illustrate how medical breakthroughs actually take place.
“The $800 Million Pill” suggests ways that the government's role in testing new medicines could be expanded to eliminate the private sector waste driving up the cost of existing drugs. Pharmaceutical firms should be compelled to refocus their human and financial resources on true medical innovation, Goozner insists. This book is essential reading for everyone concerned about the politically charged topics of drug pricing, Medicare coverage, national health care, and the role of pharmaceutical companies in developing countries.
To help libraries promote November’s eBook of the Month to their patrons, NetLibrary has developed a tool kit of free promotional materials that includes print-on-demand bookmarks, sample press releases, and electronic support materials including online banners and buttons. More information on November’s eBook of the Month is available at: http://legacy.netlibrary.com/help/ebookofthemonth/overview.asp
One of the largest nonprofit publishers in the United States, the University of California Press publishes over 180 new books and 50 journals each year in the humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences. Founded in 1893, U.C. Press today attracts manuscripts from the world's foremost scholars, as well as writers, artists, and intellectuals outside the scholarly community. About one-third of current authors are affiliated with the University of California.
Merrill Goozner is former Chief Economics Correspondent at the Chicago Tribune. Winner of six Peter Lisagor Awards, Goozner is a contributing editor for The American Prospect. His work has also appeared in the New York Times, Washington Post, Boston Magazine, Columbia Journalism Review, Washington Monthly, Fortune Small Business, Slate.com, and Salon.com, among other publications.
The NetLibrary division of OCLC Online Computer Library Center, Inc. (www.netlibrary.com) helps academic, public, corporate and special libraries create a richer, more productive learning environment for their patrons. By combining the time-honored traditions of the library system with electronic publishing, NetLibrary offers an easy-to-use information retrieval system for accessing the full text of reference, scholarly, and professional books. OCLC Online Computer Library Center, Inc. (www.oclc.org) is a nonprofit organization and leader in computer-based cataloging, reference, resource sharing and preservation services to libraries worldwide.
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