english.prescrire.org > Spotlight > Archives : 2013 > The Prescrire Information Awards for 2012: a few companies to be commended, but too many "Red Cards"

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The Prescrire Information Awards for 2012: a few companies to be commended, but too many "Red Cards"

The pharmaceutical company's transparency, as an indicator of its credibility, is one of the criteria in choosing a drug, along with efficacy, adverse effects, usability and price.

Prescrire's analyses of new drugs and of new indications for drugs already on the market are based on a comprehensive literature search designed to gather data, clinical trial data in particular.

For each drug analysed, Prescrire examines materials including international biomedical literature and publications independent of the pharmaceutical industry, as well as requesting information from drugs regulatory agencies. Prescrire also requests information from the pharmaceutical company (or companies) marketing the drug, in particular all of the unpublished data in their possession.

Prescrire's Information Awards reflects the quality and timeliness of the information provided to Prescrire's editors by pharmaceutical companies for drugs that were reviewed in the French journal over the past year.  Prescrire salutes the responsibly minded companies who provided detailed and pertinent information, particularly unpublished data, within a reasonable time frame. For 2012, 8 companies have been selected for the "Honours List", and two of them deemed "Outstanding" for having provided information to Prescrire very early on, supplying data that were particularly complete and detailed. This demonstrates that teams working at some pharmaceutical companies have come to understand that quality information and transparency vis à vis the healthcare professionals that rely upon Prescrire's analyses are their responsibility, and work in favour of better use of medicines.

On the contrary, 8 companies were singled out for "Red Cards", for not having answered Prescrire's requests for information, for having barely answered, or for answering as late as possible. These "Red Cards" demonstrate a repeated lack of responsiveness on the part of certain pharmaceutical companies. The decision to better inform healthcare professional via Prescrire is down to them. 

©Prescrire 11 February 2013

"2012 Prescrire Awards" Prescrire Int 2013; 22 (136): 79-82. (Pdf, free).
Download the full review.
Pdf, free

The Annual Prescrire Awards
(February 2013)
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