EMA coun­ters the aca­d­e­mics who crit­i­cized the can­cer drug ap­proval process

As more can­cer drugs are ap­proved and prices con­tin­ue to rise, ques­tions have cir­cu­lat­ed on whether these drugs are ex­tend­ing pa­tient sur­vival or im­prov­ing qual­i­ty of life. A re­search ar­ti­cle pub­lished in the BMJ last week re­viewed the ap­proval of drugs by the EMA from 2009 to 2013 and not­ed that most drugs en­tered the mar­ket with­out ev­i­dence of sur­vival ben­e­fits or QoL. But rather than re­fute the BMJ ar­ti­cle’s find­ings in a re­sponse pub­lished Thurs­day, Francesco Pig­nat­ti, head of on­col­o­gy, hema­tol­ogy and di­ag­nos­tics at the EMA, wrote that the ar­ti­cle’s find­ings “are not sur­pris­ing to any­one fa­mil­iar with can­cer drug de­vel­op­ment.”

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