Novartis' research study questioned in Japan

Swiss drug major Novartis (NOVN: VX) has admitted that there was an undisclosed conflict of interest in a study of one of its drugs carried out at a Japanese university, but says guidelines now in place are followed by all its employees, reports swissinfo.ch, the international service of the Swiss Broadcasting Corporation.

An unnamed researcher, reported to be an adjunct lecturer at Osaka City University, had hidden the fact that he was an employee of the firm’s Japanese unit, Novartis Pharma KK, when he was taking part in a study of Novartis’ now off-patent blockbuster blood pressure drug Diovan (valsartan), the Japanese Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare (MHLW) has said, describing this as “extremely regrettable.”

The Kyoto Prefectural University of Medicine said last week that incomplete clinical data had been used in the study of Diovan. It said that if the researchers had used the patients’ records in their entirety, it was “highly likely” they would have reached a different conclusion. The Kyoto heart study had already been retracted from the European Heart Journal earlier in the year