Albert I. Wertheimer, PhD

Albert Wertheimer, PhD, MBA, Professor of Pharmaceutical Economics at Temple University and a member of Pharm Exec's Editorial Advisory Board, shows how the simple matter of a drug shortage is not a simple matter at all.

More than one-third of the dollar value of all US healthcare assistance to the developing world is donated by pharmaceutical companies to humanitarian agencies. That is the finding of a 2003 survey conducted by the Center for Pharmaceutical Health Services Research at the Temple University School of Pharmacy and sponsored by the Partnership for Quality Medical Donations (PQMD), an alliance of nine drug companies and a dozen humanitarian agencies. (See "About PQMD.") The survey, conducted annually since PQMD's inception in 1999, helps members quantify the value of their donation efforts and assists groups who wish to benchmark their work against that of other organizations.