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| Тема |
 фармацефтичните компании днес |
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| Автор | Kaлинa (Нерегистриран) | |
| Публикувано | 26.04.04 18:31 |
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Firms become more aggressive as productivity crisis takes its toll
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/health_medical/story.jsp?story=514315
Jeremy Laurance. The Independent. 23 April 2004
The noose is tightening on the pharmaceutical industry. It has delivered
many new drugs in the past 50 years, which have saved millions of lives and
transformed the outlook for millions of others, but its power and influence
is now a cause of growing disquiet.
It has consistently been one of the most profitable industries, is truly
global and has great political power, especially in the United States. But
it faces a productivity crisis. It was once producing three new chemical
entities each year; that number is now down to 0.3. So companies have had to
market their products still harder and "invent" new diseases to treat.
Researching and developing new drugs is extremely costly. A major drug trial
may cost millions of pounds and companies have become adept at ensuring they
deliver the right results. It is not a matter of dishonesty but of being
clever - in setting the trial up, finding the right people to run it and
write it up and the right place to publish it.
Richard Smith, editor of the British Medical Journal , said: "Drug companies
very rarely get the results they don't want."
In cancer, heart disease, mental health and other fields, the companies have
delivered trials that have boosted sales of their products. But the research
has been subsequently questioned.
A British Medical Journal study found that new cancer drugs are expensive,
but deliver few benefits over existing ones. Vast sums have been spent
researching, developing and promoting new heart drugs called Ace inhibitors
and calcium channel blockers. But an independent study, published in the
Journal of the American Medical Association , showed they were no better
than the cheapest, oldest diuretic drugs.
About 10,000 prescriptions a day are written for acne drugs, but there is no
solid evidence that one is better than another.
The drug companies' failure to provide all necessary data to enable the
institute to issue safe and reliable guidance to doctors needs urgent
attention. But the companies' reluctance to run trials comparing rival
products "head to head" must also be addressed.
Dr Smith said that public funding must be provided to run more trials
comparing treatments, in the interests of the NHS, even if the cost runs
into seven figures. "To spend that amount of money to answer a fundamental
question about which drug to prescribe has got to be better value for money
than to go on prescribing these drugs for years and years without knowing
what is best."
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