Why is pharmacology important?

Pharmacology helps people around the world to live healthier lives for longer and you can find it everywhere.

Pharmacology is there when you visit the dentist and have an injection to numb your mouth. Pharmacology is there when you take medicine for a headache. Pharmacologists created hay fever tablets, antibiotics, cancer treatments, and many other medicines that millions of us use each day.

Without pharmacologists we would not be able to:

• discover new medicines to help fight diseases
• make sure medicines are safe
• understand why some medicines work better for some people than others
• understand why some drugs cause addiction

Pharmacology is at the forefront of our fight to help ensure everyone has the opportunities to live healthy lives for longer. Pharmacologists around the world are currently:

• developing medicines to tackle new diseases
• identifying new treatments when old ones stop being effective
• discovering new medicines
• exploring how we can best use the medicines we already have
• tackling antibiotic resistance
• studying ageing to help us all live healthier lives for longer
• researching to make sure medicines are effective for everyone
• helping to make sure that everyone is prescribed the right medicines for them

You can find out more about important areas of pharmacology research taking place around the world in the Society magazine, Pharmacology Matters.