Campaigners protest former EMA chief's private sector roles

Campaigners have sent a letter to European Health Commissioner John Dalli taking issue with the European Medicines Agency's decision to allow its former executive director Thomas Lonngren to take up an advisory role within the pharmaceutical industry within weeks of leaving the agency.

Lonngren left the EMA at the end of December 2010 to join the NDA Advisory Services, a regulatory and market access consultancy, as well as various other roles within the pharmaceutical industry.

The letter- sent jointly by the Alliance for Lobby Transparency and Ethics Regulation (ALTER-EU), the European Consumers’ Organisation (BEUC), the European Public Health Alliance (EPHA), Health Action International Europe (HAI), and the International Society of Drug Bulletins (ISDB) - suggests that EMA rules regarding conflicts of interest may not have been respected.