Abstract
Pharmacoeconomics, as the compound name suggests, is the application of principles of economic enquiry to pharmaceuticals. Although the label "pharmacoeconomics" has been used only for the last ten years or so, already there are a journal of the same name publishing monthly issues and textbooks on the topic. Graduate programs and fellowships in pharmacoeconomics are flourishing around the world, and professional societies such as the Association for Outcomes Research and Pharmacoeconomics (APOR) have appeared. The daily mail is not complete without an announcement for another pharmacoeconomics conference. So what is pharmacoeconomics all about, and why does it rate a special issue of MDM?