Most items that are marketed today are mass-produced by the pharmaceutical industry. The U.S. pharmaceutical industry has been represented since 1958 by the Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Association. The pharmacist is also responsible for helping to ensure that a proper program is appropriate for a patient, based partly on how much detailed and timely knowledge of the patient's condition is at hand. Further, he or she should inform the person administering or taking the chemical about its proper use, side effects, and dangers. Their preparation, and their proper use to treat illness by cure, control, and prevention.
Modern medicine is so complex and rapidly changing that no one can know or practice all of it.
These are created either through synthesis by pharmaceutical chemists or through collection and purification from natural sources by experts in pharmacognosy. The scientific study of the effects is called pharmacology. Biopharmaceutics and pharmacokinetics study and describe how these reach and are removed from their sites of action in the body. In only one part of the health-care system do pharmacists alone dominate in the dispensing of items prescribed by physicians. The concerns of pharmacists begin with chemical discovery and end with evaluating and improving drug effectiveness in a single patient at a given time.