Avorn wrote a book about drugs and health care called Powerful Medicines.

NPR: Drug Firms Pour $40 Million Into Health Care Debate

As a group, PDPs like OneWorld Health, Medicines for Malaria Venture, the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative, Drugs for Neglected Diseases Initiative, and the Foundation for Innovative Diagnostics target diseases such as tuberculosis, malaria, Chagas, HIV and AIDS, and soil-transmitted helminthiasis, a group of parasitic infections caused by worms.

FORBES: Can Non-Profit Drug Companies Cure Diseases of Poverty?

The health secretary also announced plans for patients to receive unlicensed drugs if all other medicines have failed.

BBC: Life sciences statement

They are expected to benefit from the aging of a population ever more reliant on prescription drugs, as well as wider availability of advanced medicines and health insurance coverage.

FORBES: 1. Pharmacist

In addition, doctors feel they have lost some authority picking medicines, as health plans have learned to wield co-pays to steer use of certain drugs.

WSJ: Drug Reps Soften Their Sales Pitches

According to Stephen Rosenfeld, a lawyer with the Prescription Access Litigation Project, which has launched a class-action suit against AstraZeneca and Barr Laboratories over Tamoxifen, an anti-cancer drug, delays to generic drugs mean that 42m Americans who lack health insurance pay a high price, and may not get essential medicines at all.

ECONOMIST: Prescription drugs