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Prescrire's annual medicines review:
health authorities are too lax

Pharmaceutical companies are not subjected to adequate controls.

Prescrire's review of new medicines marketed in 2007 reveals a plethora of phony innovations: fixed-dose combinations of previously known substances, existing or old drugs presented in gimmicky new pharmaceutical forms, "me-too" drugs that are very similar to existing products, etc.

Few drugs offer genuine progress for patients, but there are still far too many drugs that are potentially unsafe, and that regulatory agencies should never have authorised in the first place. When it comes to patient safety, drug regulatory agencies are still dragging their feet; they seem to be afraid of challenging the pharmaceutical companies. Agencies are authorising a growing number of medicines on the basis of insufficient data, with the proviso that the firms introduce post-market "risk management plans". This attitude leaves patients exposed to drugs that should not be used.

In France in 2007, only three medicinal products were withdrawn for safety reasons, while a number of drugs with an unfavourable risk-benefit balance remain on the market.

As in previous years, the high cost of drugs seems out of proportion to the benefits they offer patients.

Corporate promotional activities targeting both healthcare professionals and patients are increasingly invasive and insidious.

It appears that patients, citizens and healthcare professionals cannot trust health authorities to keep pharmaceutical companies' commercial strategies in check.

©Prescrire February 2008

Source: "L'année 2007 du médicament : les politiques et les agences laissent la santé des populations aux mains de firmes" Rev Prescrire 2008 ; 28 (292) : 134-140.

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