The perfect last-minute gift Shop credit bundles
Pharma by Gerald Posner
  Send as gift   Add to Wish List

Almost ready!

In order to save audiobooks to your Wish List you must be signed in to your account.

      Log in       Create account
Illustration of person opening a gift

The perfect last-minute gift

Audiobook credit bundles can be delivered instantly, given worldwide, and support local bookstores!

Start gifting
Phone showing make the switch message

Limited-time offer

Get two free audiobooks!

Now’s a great time to shop indie. When you start a new one credit per month membership supporting local bookstores with promo code SWITCH, we’ll give you two bonus audiobook credits at sign-up.

Sign up today

Pharma

Greed, Lies, and the Poisoning of America

$36.74

Get for $14.99 with membership
Narrator Jacques Roy

This audiobook uses AI narration.

We’re taking steps to make sure AI narration is transparent.

Learn more
Length 22 hours 55 minutes
Language English
  Send as gift   Add to Wish List

Almost ready!

In order to save audiobooks to your Wish List you must be signed in to your account.

      Log in       Create account

Award-winning journalist and New York Times bestselling author Gerald Posner reveals the heroes and villains of the trillion-dollar-a-year pharmaceutical industry and delivers “a withering and encyclopedic indictment of a drug industry that often seems to prioritize profits over patients (The New York Times Book Review).

Pharmaceutical breakthroughs such as anti­biotics and vaccines rank among some of the greatest advancements in human history. Yet exorbitant prices for life-saving drugs, safety recalls affecting tens of millions of Americans, and soaring rates of addiction and overdose on pre­scription opioids have caused many to lose faith in drug companies. Now, Americans are demanding a national reckoning with a monolithic industry.

Gerald’s dogged reporting, sets Pharma apart from all books on this subject” (The Washington Standard) as we are introduced to brilliant scientists, incorruptible government regulators, and brave whistleblowers facing off against company exec­utives often blinded by greed. A business that profits from treating ills can create far deadlier problems than it cures. Addictive products are part of the industry’s DNA, from the days when corner drugstores sold morphine, heroin, and cocaine, to the past two decades of dangerously overprescribed opioids.

Pharma also uncovers the real story of the Sacklers, the family that became one of America’s wealthiest from the success of OxyContin, their blockbuster narcotic painkiller at the center of the opioid crisis. Relying on thousands of pages of government and corporate archives, dozens of hours of interviews with insiders, and previously classified FBI files, Posner exposes the secrets of the Sacklers’ rise to power—revelations that have long been buried under a byzantine web of interlocking companies with ever-changing names and hidden owners. The unexpected twists and turns of the Sackler family saga are told against the startling chronicle of a powerful industry that sits at the intersection of public health and profits. “Explosively, even addictively, readable” (Booklist, starred review), Pharma reveals how and why American drug com­panies have put earnings ahead of patients.

Gerald Posner is an award-winning journalist who has written twelve books, including the Pulitzer Prize finalist Case Closed and multiple national bestsellers. His 2015 book, God’s Bankers, a two-hundred-year history of the finances of the Vatican, was an acclaimed New York Times bestseller. Posner has written for many national magazines and papers, including The New York TimesThe New YorkerNewsweek, and Time, and he has been a regular contributor to NBC, the History Channel, CNN, CBS, MSNBC, and FOX News. He lives in Miami Beach with his wife, author Trisha Posner.

Audiobook details

Author:

Narrator:
Jacques Roy

ISBN:
9781797101729

Length:
22 hours 55 minutes

Language:
English

Publisher:
Simon & Schuster Audio

Publication date:

Edition:
Unabridged

Libro.fm rank:
#28,689 Overall

Genre rank:
#585 in Health

Illustration of person opening a gift

The perfect last-minute gift

Audiobook credit bundles can be delivered instantly, given worldwide, and support local bookstores!

Start gifting
Phone showing make the switch message

Limited-time offer

Get two free audiobooks!

Now’s a great time to shop indie. When you start a new one credit per month membership supporting local bookstores with promo code SWITCH, we’ll give you two bonus audiobook credits at sign-up.

Sign up today

Reviews

"Jacques Roy's consistently clear performance of Posner's audiobook is appropriate for its tone. Posner's research into the pharmaceutical industry is unsparing. Listeners are guided through the history of an industry that routinely seeks profit over public interest. Key details are covered: Why are there so many variants to over-the-counter painkillers? How did Oxycontin become so popular despite demonstrable public harm? Posner's research is exhaustive and provides damning insights. ('Pharma bro' Martin Shkreli was publicly vilified in 2015 for raising a vital drug's cost from $13 from $750, but that price remains unchanged.) Roy's approach to this work provides a neutral yet engaging tone for its information on the nature of this controversial industry." Expand reviews
The perfect last-minute gift Shop credit bundles