Pharmaceutical means connected with the making and selling of medicines. The pharmaceutical industry, pharmaceutical companies, a pharmaceutical grade.
Bringing one drug to market takes something over a decade and most candidates fail, which is the industry's explanation for its prices and the starting point of every argument about them. Pharmaceutical grade means made to a defined purity standard. The Greek pharmakon means a drug.
1adjectivepharmaceuticalConnected with the making and selling of medicines.
“She works for a pharmaceutical company that makes cancer drugs.”
pharmaceutical is a quality of industry.
Greek pharmakeutikos comes from pharmakon, a drug or medicine. Pharmacy is the same root.
Ancient Greek
φαρμακευτικός — of or by means of drugs or pharmacy
English, today
pharmaceutical
From pharmaceuticus + -al, from Ancient Greek φαρμακευτικός (“of or by means of drugs or pharmacy”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA