John’s work within this theme traces developments in capitalism and neo-liberalism in relation to the dynamics of the relationship between the pharmaceutical industry and the regulatory state. This includes, but is not exhausted by, investigations of industrial and state secrecy, revolving doors, conflicts of interests, legislative oversight, judicial review, and minimization of the independence of the regulatory state from the commercial interests of the pharmaceutical industry. In the course of this work, he invented corporate bias theory and neo-liberal corporate bias theory in preference to the existing political theories of regulatory capture and neo-liberal theory, and in preference to subsequent disease-politics theory, regulatory reputational theory, and expectations-theory. This theme is exemplified in the following publications:
John Abraham Science, Politics and the Pharmaceutical Industry, 310pp, UCL Press, 1995.
John Abraham and Graham Lewis Regulating Medicines in Europe: Competition, Expertise and Public Health, 254pp, Routledge, 2000.
John Abraham and Courtney Davis Unhealthy Pharmaceutical Regulation: Innovation, Politics and Promissory Science, 348pp, Palgrave, 2013.
John Abraham and Gowree Balendran (in press 2025) ‘The Political Sociology of NICE: Investigating Pharmaceutical Cost-Effectiveness Regulation in the UK’ Sociology of Health & Illness
John Abraham and Courtney Davis (2013) ‘Is there a cure for corporate crime in the drug industry?’ British Medical Journal, 346 (9 February): 7.
John Abraham (2002) ‘The Pharmaceutical Industry as Political Player’ Lancet 360: 1498-1502.
John Abraham (2002) ‘Making regulation responsive to commercial interests: streamlining drug industry watchdogs’ British Medical Journal 325: 1164-69.
John Abraham (2005) ‘Regulating the drugs industry transparently’ British Medical Journal 331: 528-29.
John Abraham (2007) ‘From evidence to theory – neo-liberal corporate bias as a framework for understanding UK pharmaceutical regulation’ Social Theory and Health 5: 161-75.
John Abraham and Courtney Davis (2011) ‘Desperately seeking cancer drugs: explaining the emergence and outcomes of accelerated pharmaceutical regulation’ Sociology of Health & Illness, 33(4): 731-47.
Abraham, John and Julie Sheppard (1997) ‘Democracy, Technocracy and the Secret State of Medicine: Expert and Non-Expert Perspectives’ Science, Technology and Human Values 22: 139-167.
John Abraham (2010) ‘On the prohibition of conflicts of interest in pharmaceutical regulation: precautionary limits and permissive challenges’ Social Science & Medicine 70: 648-52.
Abraham, J. (2002) ‘The political economy of medicines regulation in Britain’ in (ed.) H. LawtonSmith, The Regulation of Science and Technology, pp. 221-63.
Palgrave.