Course Description
There is a fine line between medicines, recreational drugs and poisons. This is historically true of cocaine, heroin, and amphetamines, and now also syntenic opioids like Fentanyl. Those dividing lines are drawn on both a biochemical and societal basis, and it is biomedical and social processes that lead to their development. This multidisciplinary course analyzes the nature and intersection of pharmaceuticals, science and society. The course begins with a brief historical overview of the chemical and institutional history of pharmaceuticals, and the birth of the pharmaceutical industry. We then track the multiphase process of pharmaceutical drug development through numerous scientific, political, regulatory, medical, as well as business and innovation practices. In each phase of drug research, development and deployment, we identify and analyze key scientific and societal issues. The course discusses how medicines like vaccines, antibiotics, stem cell and immunotherapies have collectively saved millions of lives while building some of the largest industrial sectors in the world. The course also examines the connections between public taxpayer investment in pre-clinical scientific work and privatization into for-profit commercial ventures. We track how the scientific method influences clinical trials as well as the various degrees of protection and controls for research participants. The course shows the chemical and biological basis upon which drugs are regulated and licensed in Canada, and how they end up on provincial drug plans (or not). We explore the power of the pharmaceutical industry in the marketing of drugs and the manipulation of biological information, and how they shape the prescribing practices of doctors. The course concludes by exploring statistical elements of defining rare diseases and the access and availability challenges for drugs for rare diseases.