Boehringer-In­gel­heim has some ex­plain­ing to do; It's time biotech came to grips with com­pas­sion

End­points as­sess­es the big bio­phar­ma R&D sto­ries of the week, with a lit­tle added com­men­tary on what they mean for the in­dus­try.

What did Boehringer-In­gel­heim know, and when did it know it

News about the lethal can­cer drug ol­mu­tinib con­tin­ues to bub­ble out of South Ko­rea. Mem­bers of the coun­try’s op­po­si­tion par­ties have used the con­tro­ver­sy to float new re­ports of pa­tient deaths as well as a doc­u­ment from Boehringer-In­gel­heim dat­ed Au­gust 23rd out­lin­ing se­ri­ous safe­ty is­sues with this drug that forced the end of clin­i­cal stud­ies. It wasn’t un­til a month lat­er, though, that Boehringer-In­gel­heim washed its hands of the deal with­out ini­tial­ly even men­tion­ing the prob­lems pub­licly. The tim­ing al­so trig­gered charges of in­sid­er trad­ing in South Ko­rea. At this stage, nei­ther com­pa­ny is an­swer­ing queries about the tim­ing of their de­ci­sion. A lack of trans­paren­cy here will come back to haunt both com­pa­nies, but Boehringer-In­gel­heim — a well es­tab­lished pri­vate play­er — has the most to lose. Com­pa­nies fre­quent­ly like to stay mum about bad news, but this case in­volves pa­tients who are still be­ing giv­en ol­mu­tinib in South Ko­rea. They al­so have a debt to the pa­tients they re­cruit­ed for clin­i­cal stud­ies to ful­ly ex­plain what’s go­ing on. It’s time to come clean on what they knew and when they knew it.

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