Health experts critical of pharma industry's new transparency rules

The European pharmaceutical industry association EFPIA has published new ethical commitments on clinical trials aimed at allaying accusations that a lack of transparency on how new drugs are tested is hurting patients. Critics however are unconvinced. Speaking on Tuesday (27 August), the director of EFPIA, Richard Bergström, said the industry's new ethical commitments were aimed at preventing public health problems down the line. The commitments include improving data sharing with researchers, enhancing public access to clinical study information, sharing results with patients who participate in clinical trials, certifying producers for sharing clinical trial information and publishing clinical trial results. However, Bergström warned that full transparency would hurt the industry, which relies on protection of trade secrets to compete in Europe and across the world. "We don’t want our competitors to learn too quickly about how we go about the clinical trials. We believe that a framework which is run by the industry itself is much more likely to take care of these balances," Bergström told a panel debate organised by EFPIA in Brussels. "Maybe we have come slowly to this debate – both the regulators and the industry – but we’re doing this now. We’re opening this up, sharing much more information. This commitment is about doing that big time. Maybe we could have done this a year ago or two years ago, but nevertheless, it’s not too late," Bergström ...
Source: PharmaGossip - Category: Pharma Commentators Authors: Source Type: blogs