Successful conference on clinical drug trials

30. September 2016

On the occasion of the conference organised by Health Action International (HAI) and Public Eye in Geneva, re-known international specialists have debated about ethical challenges and lack of transparency around clinical trials. Despite their importance, clinical trials as such are rarely debated in public. The all day long event has thus sparked international interest, convening up to 100 participants from the NGO, regulatory, academia, medical, media and industry sector.

Download the Conference Report here

Four central issues have been debated by prominent international experts:

Globalisation of clinical trials and ethics
Transparency and access to data
Evidence generation for marketing authorisation and adaptive pathways
The way forward for needs-driven biomedical research.

The often incomplete and selective data communicated around clinical trials are the subject of intense discussions. According to Patrick Durisch, full transparency should “be the rule, not the exception”. It is hoped that the conference allows to “raise the alarm for stricter regulation of clinical trials”.

Conference material

Agenda

Conference Report

Presentations

Keynote Tom Jefferson, Centre for Evidence Based Medicine
Keynote Teresa Alves, La Revue Prescrire
Keynote Ruth Dreifuss, High-Level Panel on Access to Medicines

Globalisation of clinical trials and ethics:

Patrick Durisch, Public Eye
Ayman Sabae, Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights
Samia Hurst, University of Geneva
Françoise Jaquet, Swissmedic

Transparence and access to data :

Tom Jefferson, Centre for Evidence Based Medicine
Jan Stadler, European Ombudsman
Ancel.la Santos, HAI
Ghassan Karam, WHO

Marketing authorisation & adaptive Pathways:

Way forward to a needs-driven biomedical research:

Silvio Garattini, Mario Negri Institute
Joel Lexchin, York University CAN
Katy Athersuch, MSF Access Campaign
Nathalie Strub, DNDi

Further information about Clinical Trials.