Down on the pharmaceuticals

Take a quick look in your bathroom cabinet and you'll almost certainly find them: some of the billions of pounds' worth of medicines prescribed to us last year on the National Health Service.

It takes £500m to develop a drug

Many of the treatments we rely on are produced by drug companies based here in the UK, among them some of the most successful names in the world.

But it is the very size and power of the pharmaceutical industry which causes concern.

Do the drug companies with their slick salesmanship encourage hard pressed doctors to choose expensive new treatments over cheaper medicines which could be just as effective?

And, despite the vast expense involved in getting new pills to market, does the approval and licensing regime give practitioners and consumers sufficient information about safety and possible side-effects?

These are some of the questions MPs on the Commons Health Committee will be asking when they return to Parliament next month.

They're due to begin an enquiry into the influence of the pharmaceutical industry - to see if the right balance has been struck in the way the industry is regulated.

Matthew Laza has been to the North West of England to examine an issue which is becoming a real headache for some doctors.