Pharmaceutical industry bodies plan to mobilise patient groups

Pharma companies must distance themselves from their trade bodies’ leaked strategy 22nd July 2013 Two of the largest pharmaceutical industry trade bodies plan to mobilise patient groups in the debate on clinical trial transparency, the Guardian reports today. A leaked memo from the European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industry Associations (EFPIA) and the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhMRA) sets out their strategy, which begins with “mobilising patient groups to express concern about the risk to public health by non-scientific re-use of data.” GSK and Roche have distanced themselves from the industry bodies’ strategy, according to the Guardian article. Tracey Brown from Sense About Science, a co-founder of AllTrials, said “We now have the prospect of really significant developments to end the secrecy and make clinical trial reporting a practical reality and, finally, some sound commitments from parts of industry. In this context, the industry associations’ strategy to get others to raise further spurious problems is backward. It should embarrass anyone associated with it. I would say to the individual companies that they should publicly distance themselves from any association with EFPIA and PhRMA’s strategy now.” More than 150 patient groups have already joined the AllTrials campaign. The industry should [...]