Handling conflicts of interest at the EMA: impossible to satisfy everyone

摘要

Could the European Medicines Agency make better use of the close to 3,500 scientific experts who are available to work on activities at the agency by reducing certain restrictions in the conflicts-of-interest (COI) policy it imposes on them? Does the EMA need to start remunerating these experts who work for the agency on a voluntary basis, free of charge and without any official recognition?Would adopting a mechanism for naming and shaming experts who breach the COI rules deter noncompliance with the policy? Or should the agency get even tougher on COIs and implement an outright ban on the use of any expert who has ever had links with the pharmaceutical industry?These were among the many questions discussed during an EMA workshop in London on 6 September designed to assist the agency in its annual review of the COI policy and gauge how it might attract more experts. Participants at the workshop were from academia, patient organizations, EMA scientific committees, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), the pharmaceutical industry and the scientific media.