Quigley, co-founder of People of Faith for Access to Medicines, explores the reasons behind high prescription drug costs and the consequences of those costs for individuals, drug companies, and governments. The pharmaceutical industry has created many ways of creating monopolistic conditions by extending the time of patent protection by slightly tweaking medicines or giving them new purposes (known as evergreening). They justify high prices by exaggerating development costs and spend billions on marketing medicines to physicians and hospitals. The Pharmaceutical Researchers and Manufacturers Association spends billions in political campaigns to protect monopolies. The Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights protects patent holders across 123 countries and limits the ability of governments to provide medicines at lower costs to people who cannot afford them. Some government-based ways to reduce drug costs include making it more difficult to extend patents for minor drug changes, adding drugs to the World Health Organization Essential Medicines List, and creating price-review boards. Easy-to-read short chapters. Many references from top journals and government documents.