Pharma Monopoly: The Battle for the Future of Medicines

It is no secret that billions of people across the world lack the freedom and right to access life-saving medicines. For decades, people have fought to put this, though, as the Covid-19 pandemic made sickeningly clear, vast swaths of humanity are still left without. The reason: people are actively denied access to affordable medicines by outdated patent rules and economic policies dominated by neoliberalism. It is no accident, and it is not due to the pharmaceutical industry alone.

Tahir Amin and Rohit Malpani, two leading figures in the access to medicines movement, examine the origins of this system of rules that champions monopolies and the false god of innovation over the public interest and human well-being. They tell the story of how, move by move, governments have ceded control to and then empowered pharmaceutical companies, making it increasingly hard to undo the damage wreaked along the way. From their unique vantage points and experiences, the authors critique global health initiatives and philanthropists for maintaining the status quo and warn of a future dominated by financial markets and artificial intelligence that will reinforce the worst practices of yesterday and portends new injustices for everyone.

Ultimately, Pharma Monopoly questions the foundations of international efforts to improve access to medicines and calls for a new way forward that can rekindle a movement for justice.

The freedom and right to access affordable medicines remains a signal challenge for humanity. Books like Tahir Amin and Rohit Malpani's are needed now more than ever to reveal to wider publics the inequities and injustices that riddle the global system." Dr. Tlaleng Mofokeng, UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Health

"A searing and meticulous account of how a handful of Western drug companies and their government sponsors gained a global death-grip on life-saving medicines. Drawing upon decades of experience – ranging from Big Philanthropy back rooms to the frontlines of advocacy – Tahir Amin and Rohit Malpani have produced an indispensable guide to understanding the current system, its staggering human cost, and how we might move beyond it." Alexander Zaitchik, author of Owning the Sun: A People's History of Monopoly Medicine

"Offers a compelling account of how market forces and patent protections can distort both the direction of drug innovation and access to its benefits." Science