Comments on: Overseas Drug Trials Come Under Scrutiny http://www.pharmalot.com/2008/12/overseas-drug-trials-come-under-scrutiny/ News, Comment and Conversation Thu, 18 Mar 2010 18:21:50 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.6.2 By: Steve http://www.pharmalot.com/2008/12/overseas-drug-trials-come-under-scrutiny/#comment-383452 Steve Tue, 02 Dec 2008 13:18:30 +0000 http://www.pharmalot.com/?p=18101#comment-383452 I know knocking the pharma industry sells newspapers and may be popular with Joe Public but isn't it time someone provided a more balanced view . . . in my experience over the past 20 yrs the quality of the clinical trial work done in India, Eastern Europe and Asia is at least as good as the US and W Europe - and often better. Sure there are occasional mistakes and regrettable errors - and no-one is excusing these - but this needs to be kept in perpective as they happen at least as often here in the US and in W Europe as they do in RoW. It is also well established that patients are better off when cared for in a clinical trial setting - irrespective of what treatment they're on. They get better access to medical professionals, the latest care and of course potentially beneficial treatments . . . How about we give the indutry some of the credit they deserve . . . 90% of new drugs are developed by pharma and they have been responsible for innovations that have revolutionised medicine over the past 100 yrs or so. Take organ transplantation . . . without the revolutionary immunosuppressant cyclosporin (which was discovered and developed by Sandoz - now Novartis) we wouldn't have a viable solid organ transplantation program - and many hundreds of thousands of patients w/wide would have died young instead of being able to live relatively happy and productive lives. Of course, the pharma indutry is not perfect and even one patient suffering as a result of a trial error is one too many . . . but let's get some balance into this debate instead of contantly focusing on the negatives . . . I know knocking the pharma industry sells newspapers and may be popular with Joe Public but isn’t it time someone provided a more balanced view . . . in my experience over the past 20 yrs the quality of the clinical trial work done in India, Eastern Europe and Asia is at least as good as the US and W Europe - and often better. Sure there are occasional mistakes and regrettable errors - and no-one is excusing these - but this needs to be kept in perpective as they happen at least as often here in the US and in W Europe as they do in RoW. It is also well established that patients are better off when cared for in a clinical trial setting - irrespective of what treatment they’re on. They get better access to medical professionals, the latest care and of course potentially beneficial treatments . . .

How about we give the indutry some of the credit they deserve . . . 90% of new drugs are developed by pharma and they have been responsible for innovations that have revolutionised medicine over the past 100 yrs or so. Take organ transplantation . . . without the revolutionary immunosuppressant cyclosporin (which was discovered and developed by Sandoz - now Novartis) we wouldn’t have a viable solid organ transplantation program - and many hundreds of thousands of patients w/wide would have died young instead of being able to live relatively happy and productive lives.

Of course, the pharma indutry is not perfect and even one patient suffering as a result of a trial error is one too many . . . but let’s get some balance into this debate instead of contantly focusing on the negatives . . .

]]> By: Meg http://www.pharmalot.com/2008/12/overseas-drug-trials-come-under-scrutiny/#comment-383405 Meg Mon, 01 Dec 2008 20:29:52 +0000 http://www.pharmalot.com/?p=18101#comment-383405 Just a continuation of John LeCarre's "The Constant Gardener".... Just a continuation of John LeCarre’s “The Constant Gardener”….

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