The pharmaceutical industry will no longer provide branded promotional aids, such as pens, pads and mugs to health
professionals. This will take effect from 1st May 2011. Some companies have already made this change
and others may do so ahead of this date.
http://www.abpi.org.uk/our-work/library/industry/Pages/joint-statement.aspx
International aid agencies have urged the Indian government to reject a free trade agreement it is negotiating with the European Union. The agreement may undermine India’s ability to produce cheap generic drugs. The concern stems from leaked sections of the text showing that the EU wants India to accept a data exclusivity provision which would force India’s generic manufacturers to submit their own data on safety and effectiveness to register the generic products. It will force generic manufacturers to repeat clinical trials already done by industry to get their drugs approved.BMJ 2011, 342, 1480
Emergency Medicine Australasia announced that they will stop accepting pharmaceutical advertisement. They say that the move is a response to growing evidence about the effects of the drug industry in medicine and claims that industry distorts research findings.
BMJ 2011 342 d884
The NHS in England could save £200m a year if it switched patients with hypertension from candesartan to losartan without any loss of clinical benefits. BMJ 2011 342, d890
Pfizer is planning to close its research and development plan in Kent as part of a plan to trim research spending from over $8bn to less than $7bn. They plan to focus on areas that offer the greatest promise such as cancer and vaccines.
BMJ 2011 342, d771
Health ministers in England may call for a full technology appraisal of a cancer drug to treat eye conditions, even though it is not licensed for the condition. Avastin has been widely used in the UK and the US to treat age-related macular degeneration, despite lack of license, because it is much cheaper than the licensed alternative, Lucentis. Both were developed by Genetech and Lucentis is approved for NHS used by NICE. Avastin is about 15 times cheaper than Lucentis. However, Roche has no desire to apply for a licence for Avastin as it would be undercutting its own licensed alternative.Although it is not unprecedented for NICE to review unlicensed medicines, the MHRA generally discourages the use of unlicensed products when a licensed alternative exists.BMJ 2011; 342: d62
The European Medicines Agency is preparing to make more of its documentaion available to health professionals and the general public. The policy can be seen at www.ema.europa.eu <http://www.ema.europa.eu/>BMJ 2010, 341, c7039
European parliament has passed draft legislation to allow drug companies to provide information directly to patients. The draft legislation would enable patients in the EU to receive data on a drug’s characteristic and the disease and condition for which it is designed. It claims to guarantee that the information provided would not stray into advertising. EU Governments have to approve this legislation before it can take effect.
BMJ 2010, 341, c6883
Two doctors in Germany have been convicted of bribery for accepting money from a drug firm for prescribing its drug.BMJ 2010, 341,c6359
Changes to the UK drug industry code of practice (ABPI) will require drug companies to make an annual declaration of how much money they have paid to doctors for use of their services. The changes will see each drug company declare the amount and the number of times payments were made to doctors, including speaker fees, advisory boards and consultancy, and sponsorship for attendance at meetings. The code does not however require individual doctors to be named.Another change to he code which comes into effect on 1st Jan 2011, will ban the industry from providing branded promotional items such as pens to healthcare professionals. Health professionals may still get pens and paper at conferences but this will not bear the name of any medicine, just the company name.BMJ 2010, 341, c6290
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