Press Release: European Medicines Agency tightens conflicts-of-interests policies with immediate effect

The European Medicines Agency (EMA), on 3 April 2012, published its updated policy on conflicts of interests of the scientific experts and committee members it uses in its work. The updated policy gives clearer guidance on the involvement of experts in academic trials and publicly funded research. It aligns restrictions for the different roles in the scientific decision-making process and tightens the rules on grants from the pharmaceutical industry. In addition, the Agency introduced a policy on conflicts of interests of Management Board members. This largely follows the policy for scientific experts and committee members, while acknowledging the fact that the Board does not deal with specific medicines.

• Primary Source

EMA: Press Release: EMA/235722/2012 (3.4.12): European Medicines Agency tightens conflicts-of-interests policies with immediate effect http://www.ema.europa.eu/docs/en_GB/document_library/Press_release/2012/04/WC500124981.pdf

EMA: Press Release: EMA/391894/2012 (8.6.12): Management Board completes framework for conflicts of interests http://www.emea.europa.eu/ema/index.jsp?curl=pages/news_and_events/news/2012/06/news_detail_001525.jsp&mid=WC0b01ac058004d5c1

EMA: European Medicines Agency breach of trust procedure on declarations of competing interests for Management Board members http://www.ema.europa.eu/docs/en_GB/document_library/Other/2012/06/WC500129044.pdf

---