Two days ago, the European Association for the Study of the Liver released summaries of abstracts in advance of its annual meeting, which starts later this month. Among these were results showing that preliminary data on two hepatitis C meds from Pharmasset suggest a breakthrough because 94 percent of the patients displayed undetectable levels of the virus after two weeks.

The summaries were posted on the EASL web site (see here and here) and, not surprisingly, sent Pharmasset stock soaring this week. The shares opened at $50 on Monday and closed yesterday at $66.92 yesterday, which amounts to a 33 percent increase. At the same time, Vertex Pharmaceuticals stock sank, because the Pharmasset results pose a competitive threat to its telaprevir hepatitis C med, which is due for FDA revew in May.

Yet, the EASL had wanted to maintain a blanket embargo policy that journalists were not to report the news until its annual meeting was under way (read this). Often, the rationale for such postures is that physicians need an opportunity to digest the info during the run-up to a more public and fuller discussion. Of course, that might make sense if only physicians or a few selected others were given access and prevented from distributing the info.

However, the EASL made the summaries freely available on the Internet and, naturally, investors reacted. So to insist on an embargo under such circumstances is not only illogical, but disrupts the free flow of information to others who would want to learn of such developments, but may not know of specific postings. Such episodes have spawned a site called Embargo Watch, which tracks the abuse of embargo policies by medical journals and professional societies, among others.

In this instance, both The Street and Bloomberg News chose to disregard the embargo. As The Street’s Adam Feuerstein noted, the site “refuses to adhere to EASL’s media embargo since these hepatitis C data are freely available online now and are impacting the stock prices of publicly traded companies developing hepatitis C drugs.” At the end of the day, this is common sense. EASL should either dispense with its blanket embargo policy or alter its distribution methods. But the group can not have it both ways.

Hat tip to Fierce Biotech