In a major change of strategy, the new head of GlaxoSmithKline, Andrew Witty, has told the Guardian he will slash prices on all medicines in the poorest countries, give back profits to be spent on hospitals and clinics and – most ground-breaking of all – share knowledge about potential drugs that are currently protected by patents. Witty says he believes drug companies have an obligation to help the poor get treatment. He challenges other pharmaceutical giants to follow his lead.
Key scientists behind World Health Organization advice on stockpiling of pandemic flu drugs had financial ties with companies which stood to profit, an investigation has found. The British Medical Journal says the scientists had openly declared these interests in other publications yet WHO made no mention of the links. It comes as a report from the Council of Europe criticised the lack of transparency around the handling of the swine flu pandemic. A spokesman for WHO said the drug industry did not influence its decisions on swine flu. Guidelines recommending governments stockpile antiviral drugs were issued by WHO in 2004. The advice prompted many countries around the world into buying up large stocks of Tamiflu, made by Roche, and Relenza manufactured by GlaxoSmithKline.
This Legal Guidance has been agreed in consultation with the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) and the Department of Health (DH). Keir Starmer QC, Director of Public Prosecutions said: "We were made aware of rising concerns among pharmacists' professional bodies in relation to prosecuting offences under the Medicines Act 1968 where a dispensing error has occurred. The MHRA subsequently approached us with a view to creating guidance for prosecutors and we have worked together to reach agreement. "We welcome this cooperation between our departments and believe that this Legal Guidance will ensure high quality decision making and consistency of approach when prosecutors come to consider such cases."
Jackson provides a meticulously argued, extensively researched and utterly compelling critique of the current regulation of phar- maceuticals. Her account of a medicine’s journey through the regulatory system in the UK paints a frightening picture of the widespread, predatory activities of profit-seeking pharmaceutical companies and the systematic failure of law and regulation effectively to hold them to account. The UK, with its well developed and well financed pharmaceutical industry and equally well entrenched tradition of state-run health care, provides a particularly fine case study for the exploration of the tension between the ideals of medicine and the pursuit of profit and, as such, it is to be hoped that this book will gain a wide, international audience.