A leading clinician has warned that patients are dying because a European Union directive that was intended to streamline the process of clinical trials has had the opposite effect.

Rory Collins, professor of epidemiology and medicine at Oxford University, told a briefing organised by the Science Media Centre on the threat to clinical trials that the “hugely increased bureaucratic burden” had made it much more difficult to investigate new treatments.

“It’s killing people. I believe that’s a fact,” he said. “People are dying unnecessarily because the way in which the regulation and bureaucracy is working has prevented us getting the …