The pharmaceutical industry develops, produces, and markets drugs or pharmaceuticals licensed for use as medications.

The main purpose why pharmaceutical drugs are produced is for treating diseases, and not healing them.

Disease mongering is one of the techniques used to market pharmaceutical drugs.

Pharmaceutical companies are allowed to deal in generic or brand medications and medical devices. 

They are subject to a variety of laws and regulations regarding the patenting, testing and ensuring safety and efficacy and marketing of drugs.

The earliest drugstores date to the Middle Ages. 

The first known drugstore was opened by Arabian pharmacists in Baghdad in 754, and many more soon began operating throughout the medieval Islamic world and eventually medieval Europe. 

By the 19th century, many of the drugstores in Europe and North America had eventually developed into larger pharmaceutical companies and money making business.