Clinical trials still falling
April 8, 2013
The number of clinical trials
started in Australia last year fell 5%
to 602, continuing a trend which
has seen trials decline a total of
30% from their 2007 high of 865.
The figures are revealed in the
Therapeutic Goods Administration’s
latest Half-Yearly Performance
Report, with Medicines Australia
ceo Brendan Shaw saying the
trend “highlights the urgent need
for the government to deliver on
its promise to implement major
reforms that will make Australian
R&D more internationally
competitive”.
In 2011 the government
committed to implement all of the
recommendations from the Clinical
Trials Action Group, which was
established to arrest the decline in
clinical trials activity.
And The McKeon Review of health
and medical research released
on Fri by health minister Tanya
Plibersek also called for clinical
trial reform to be made an ‘urgent
national priority’.
The McKeon Review, which
recommended a ten year strategy
to embed health and medical
research into all aspects of the
health system, is available online at
www.mckeonreview.org.au.
Plibersek said that some of the
recommendations directly impact
on the running of the public
hospital system, and that she
intends to take the report to the
Standing Council on Health to seek
feedback from state and territory
counterparts.
And Shaw said pharmaceutical
R&D was a “key area of
microeconomic reform for Australia.
“There is an urgent need for
far greater political activity
both at Federal and State level
to implement these regulatory
reforms...we are bleeding clinical
trial investment to other countries
at the moment,” he said.
Shaw said that the only way to
keep cutting edge medical science
in Australia was to have the right
policy settings in areas such as
regulation, intellectual property
and the PBS.
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