Despite a century of advances in modern medicine, as well as the rapid development of Covid vaccines, the global pharmaceutical industry has largely failed to bring to market drugs that actually cure disease. Why?

And looking further... How can government policies stimulate investment in the development of curative drugs? Is there an untapped potential for "natural medicines" in new drug discovery? How have private–public sector partnerships transformed the ways we innovate? To what extent are medicinal plant biodiversity and human health codependent?

Addressing this range of increasingly critical questions, Kathryn Ibata-Arens analyses the rise and decline of the global innovation system for new drug development and proposes a policy framework for fast-tracking the implementation of new discoveries and preparing for future pandemics.