EU red tape ‘blocks drug trials’
Red tape is severely hampering clinical research in the UK and inadvertently “killing people”, leading researchers have warned. European legislation introduced in 2004 has led to fewer patients enrolled in clinical trials and has caused “huge delays” in research, they said. NHS bureaucracy is a further hurdle to treatments being quickly assessed, a team of UK academics added. Regulators agreed there were some problems with interpreting EU rules.
Despite increased funding in clinical trials in the UK, the number of trials being approved has stayed the same since 2004, when the European directive on clinical trials, designed to improve patient safety, came into force. Additional funding is being eaten up by paperwork, monitoring, and procedures such as detailed labelling of drugs, experts said. In 2002, 6% of trials worldwide were being done in the UK but in 2007 this was 2%.
BBC News 12/3/9