UK MPs express concerns on clinical trial data transparency and Tamiflu stockpiling

The UK House of Commons Public Accounts Committee is calling for all data on drugs being prescribed in the UK to be made available. The lack of data on the effectiveness of medicines available to doctors and researchers is "of extreme concern," say the group of Members of Parliament (MPs).

In their report published on Friday (January 3), they note that the Department of Health spent £424 million ($697 million) on stockpiling Tamiflu (oseltamivir), an antiviral from Swiss drug major Roche (ROG: SIX) used in the treatment of influenza, for use in a pandemic, but had to write off £74 million of its Tamiflu stockpile as a result of poor record-keeping by the National Health Service.

There is a lack of consensus over how well Tamiflu (pictured) works, in particular whether it reduces complications and mortality. Discussions over this issue among professionals have been hampered because important information about clinical trials is routinely and legally withheld from doctors and researchers by manufacturers, the report stated.

This longstanding regulatory and cultural failure impacts on all of medicine, and undermines the ability of clinicians, researchers and patients to make informed decisions about which treatment is best. There are also concerns about the information made available to the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) which assesses a medicine’s clinical and cost–effectiveness for use in the NHS.