Health Action International criticizes European Parliamentary Committee's decision on Trade Secrets Directive

Health Action International, the non-profit that represents the interests of consumers in drug policy, has expressed its disappointment at the European Parliament Committee on Legal Affairs (JURI) voting to adopt the rapporteur’s report on the European Union Trade Secrets Directive.

It fears that pharma companies will use the Trade Secrets Directive as justification to withhold clinical trial data, which is now required under the European Union Clinical Trials Regulation.

Tessel Mellema, policy advisor with Health Action International, said: “Despite some minor improvements to the European Commission’s original proposal, the Trade Secrets Directive is still bad news for access to information. Researchers, journalists and whistle-blowers will still not be properly protected when using information to protect the public interest from dangerous corporate products or practices... Without this information, we simply don’t know if a medicine is any better than existing treatments, works at all, or does more harm than good. Enhanced trade secret protection also risks clinical trials being unnecessarily and unethically repeated on patients.”