News roundup

GlaxoSmithKline to set up comprehensive online clinical trials register

London Owen Dyer

GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) has set up the first comprehensive register of pharmaceutical trials in the industry, two weeks after settling for $2.5m (£1.41m; €2.07m) a US lawsuit that accused the London based company of burying unfavourable results.

The lawsuit, launched by New York State’s attorney general Eliot Spitzer, accused GSK of “repeated and persistent fraud,” alleging that the company suppressed data from at least four trials of the antidepressant paroxetine (marketed as Seroxat in Britain and as Paxil in the United States) (12 June, p 1395). The trials, which studied the drugs in adolescents, either showed no benefit over placebo or a slight increase in self harming behaviour.

On 25 August, GSK settled the lawsuit, saying in a statement that although it believed the allegations were “unfounded,” it had paid $2.5m to the State of New York to avoid the expense of a protracted legal battle.

The drug . . . [Full text of this article]

CiteULike    Complore    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    Technorati    What's this?

Relevant Articles

A legal framework for drug safety
BMJ 2008 336: 0. [Extract] [Full Text]

Parkinson's disease: a journey

Kamran Abbasi
BMJ 2004 329: 0. [Extract] [Full Text] [PDF]

This article has been cited by other articles:

• Wager, E. (2005). A concern that drug companies cannot ignore. JRSM 98: 448-450 [Full text]  
• Wren, J. D (2005). Open access and openly accessible: a study of scientific publications shared via the internet. BMJ 330: 1128- [Abstract] [Full text]  
• Abbasi, K. (2004). Compulsory registration of clinical trials. BMJ 329: 637-638 [Full text]  

Rapid Responses:

Read all Rapid Responses

"Comprehensive" headline betrays the truth

James TR Walters
bmj.com, 10 Sep 2004 [Full text]

Damage control

David Rasnick
bmj.com, 11 Sep 2004 [Full text]

"Comprehensive" database, far from it....

Debby Painter
bmj.com, 11 Sep 2004 [Full text]