Government ministers to be quizzed on clinical trials

3rd June 2013

David Willetts MP, Minister at the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills and Lord Howe, Minister for Health, will appear before the House of Commons Science and Technology committee’s inquiry into clinical trials at 4.30pm today. You can watch the session on Parliament TV.

There are a couple of important questions that we hope the committee will ask the ministers this afternoon, including:

Will the UK Government make a clear statement in support of transparency along the lines of what was voted for in Brussels last week? MEPs voted last week to add amendments to clinical trials regulations in support of transparency and data sharing, will the UK Government support that?

Will the UK government intervene in support of the European Medicines Agency?  The EMA has had injunctions issued against it in two court cases brought by pharmaceutical companies AbbVie and InterMune who challenged the Agency’s policy to give access to CSRs it holds. It has been left to the Agency’s lawyers to decide that the EMA should not release anymore CSRs it holds from any trials. Does the UK Government support the EMA’s policy on access to clinical trial information?

You can read the evidence we gave to the science and technology committee here: http://bit.ly/XOaB1d