Book excerpt: This book is an attempt to tackle some of the key global health challenges with a focus on the leading, emerging countries and mature free-market economies facing similar issues. It consists of seven chapters written by well-recognized scholars in the field affiliated to academia, pharmaceutical industry and hospital sectors based in Japan, USA, China, Germany, Netherlands, Switzerland, Ireland, Serbia, Bulgaria, Poland and Albania. The contributors had diverse expert profiles in health economics, clinical medicine, public health and population aging. Regional health care issues were processed and referred to the BRICS and N-11 nations, North American region, Far East Asia, Western and Eastern Europe. Some of the difficulties of contemporary health systems tackled in certain chapters were: population aging, health spending, insurance coverage, health technology assessment, costs of pharmaceutical development, neurological disorder and diabetes economics, public health legislation and caregiver assessment in a traditional Asian setting. All of the aforementioned research might give a dynamic impetus and expand a mental horizon to the professionals dealing with these issues. We believe that this book deserves a broad global audience consisting of health care professionals, policy makers, health economists, clinical physicians and lay persons eager to expand their knowledge in the field. Our attitude is based on the worldwide academic recognition of the listed contributors. The degree of success of these ambitiously targeted efforts will be assessed by our esteemed audience in years to come.