Search results

Historically, the drug industry has been one of the most profitable in the United States of America and has been attributed to the relatively high cost of drugs compared to other developed countries. The call on drug companies to reduce the costs has increased tremendously with the industry strongly resisting, claiming costs are justified to support research and development of newer and better drugs. This debate is currently ongoing in the legislature with strong lobbying from both sides of the divide. Hence, the main objective of this research is to determine the reasons for the high cost of prescription drugs in the United States compared to other countries and suggest ways to make drugs more affordable. The solution to the problem will most likely come from a compromise by both sides involving government funded research and production of generic drugs by companies. This would bring down the cost of drugs while ensuring continuation of research and development and guarantee reasonable profits for the drug industry.

At the dawn of the 21st century, the countries of the European community, beyond the differences between their legislation and their socio-political systems, are facing problems that call into question the ways in which socio-cultural and religious diversity has been managed since their birth to democracy. This article questions the integration models of the various European countries in the light of the challenges posed to them by globalisation, the resulting migration and the resulting cultural and religious diversification. ; International audience ; At the dawn of the 21st century, the countries of the European community, beyond the differences between their legislation and their socio-political systems, are facing problems that call into question the ways in which socio-cultural and religious diversity has been managed since their birth to democracy. This article questions the integration models of the various European countries in the light of the challenges posed to them by globalisation, the resulting migration and the resulting cultural and religious diversification. ; A l'aube du XXIème siècle, les pays de la communauté européenne, par delà les différences entre leurs législations et leurs systèmes socio-politiques, se trouvent confrontés à des problèmes qui remettent en cause les modes de gestion de la diversité socio-culturelle et religieuse échafaudés depuis leur naissance à la démocratie. Cet article interroge les modèles d'intégration des différents pays européens au regard des défis que leur imposent la mondialisation, les migrations qui en sont le corollaire et la diversification culturelle et religieuse qui en résulte.

Collective management of scientific research equipment, commonly referred to as 'platform management', is both an object of science policy in life sciences, a specific management area for research organisations and laboratories and a place for experimentation and cooperation with research teams and equipment developers. As Keating and Cambrosio rightly point out, (2003) the technical and political dimensions are inextricably linked to the concept of platform. The interest of public authorities and genomics research players in platforms is in line with the history and sociology of science and economics, which play a key role in the question of instrumentation in the emergence of new systems for producing scientific knowledge and the conditions for increasing the economic and social returns of research. Mr Gaudillière (Gaudillière, 2000) stressed that the increased use of instrumentation in life sciences was part of a historical shift towards new instrumental logic, making very heavy use of equipment, automation and new information technologies to generate, store, analyse and represent vast amounts of data. Joerges and Shinn (2001) stress the role played by the development of instrumental research — through the creation of a lingua franca — in integrating increasingly specialised disciplinary fields. Several authors note the effects of a growing division of research work which requires specific skills (Hackett, 2004, Mangematin and Peerbaye, 2005, Arora and Gambardella, 1994) and the importance of the geographical location of such equipment, on the one hand, in order to exploit distributed and difficult to transportable research capacities, on the other, in order to generate dynamic innovation and cooperation between scientific teams. It should also be noted that genomics instrumentation is not consistent with traditional concepts inherited from physical sciences: these are less unique infrastructures built on strategically chosen sites than small instrument networks dispersed around certain local specialisation ...