The Harvard Interfaculty Initiative on Medications and Society aims to facilitate and stimulate collaborative research on multiple aspects of medication use. Such interdisciplinary work is particularly timely in light of the growing importance of several factors:

• The regulatory challenge of ensuring efficient approval of important new drugs while preventing the use of potentially unsafe treatments;

• The mismatch between patients’ and physicians’ perceptions of medication risks and benefits, often resulting in poor compliance with prescribed regimens;

• The need to develop policy and payment mechanisms that encourage pharmaceutical innovation, while keeping the products of that innovation affordable to patients and payors;

• The increasing prevalence of pharmacological approaches in areas of life and culture that were not previously “medicalized,” as understood from the perspectives of anthropology, history, and sociology;

• The rising costs of pharmaceuticals and the growing role of pharmaceutical promotion in consumer culture;

• The impact of globalization on the discovery, clinical testing, patenting, regulation, and reimbursement of drug products;

• The growing issue of disparities in access to essential medications, and the need to develop and implement innovative delivery solutions.