Global clinical trials are burdened by excessive bureaucracy, conference hears

Large multinational randomised clinical trials are under threat because of the burden of regulation imposed in high income countries, a conference has heard.

Ian Roberts, director of the clinical trials unit at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, said that ethical requirements for trials are sometimes impractical and even “silly.” He was speaking at the Global Health 2011 conference at BMA House on 29 September.

Professor Roberts was the lead investigator of the CRASH-2 trial that examined the benefits of tranexamic acid in trauma and was conducted in 40 …