Setback for EMA’s vision of transparency

Raps.org journalist, Alexander Gaffney reported that an EU court has surprisingly issued an interim order that the European Medicines Agency (EMA) should stop publishing any more information or documents until a final order has been passed regarding public information. This is a setback for the EMA, whose goal is to make public all clinical and non-clinical data.  Proponents of data transparency include the people behind the AllTrials campaign, whom have the same goals as the EMA. Companies such as Abbvie and Intermune, leaders in drug and medicine innovation, have fought the idea of transparency. They have sued the EMA on grounds that the information publicized is “commercially confidential information”, in which the EU court agreed with.  EMA’s head of communication, Mark Harvey, commented on the situation via Twitter saying “disappointing, but not the end”. EMA will appeal the court’s ruling and continue with their battle to make all data and information publicly available. Is this the next step in clinical data? To read the full article click here.