Funding the European Medicines Evaluation
Agency: guaranteeing a minimum of independence
European members
of parliament recommended that EMEA's core tasks be publicly funded.
The Commission continues to argue that sensitive tasks such as evaluating
marketing authorisation applications are "services rendered
to the pharmaceutical industry" and can therefore be financed
by the same industry.
The Council
seems ready to adopt the principle of public funding for pharmacovigilance
activities (article 60-1), but offers no other guarantees.
The Medicines
in Europe Forum considers that scientific evaluation of marketing
applications, and the management of registers containing all sensitive
data on medicinal products (especially clinical trials, assessment
reports, Committee reports, pharmacovigilance surveys, etc.), must
be publicly funded. The management of administrative files can be
covered by the fees manufacturers pay for EMEA assessment.
Articles 60
and 61 should be reconsidered, taking into account the growing international
criticism of industry funding of medicines agencies.
©La revue Prescrire for the Medicines
in Europe Forum 1 March 2003
|