A review of new drugs and indications in 2002: financial speculation or better patent care?

(1) Once again, our review of drug developments in France in 2002 shows that, in an unfettered market drugs that offer patients no concrete advantages are announced with the biggest fanfare, while drugs that represent real therapeutic advance risk going unnoticed. (2) Regulatory agencies continue to fail in their duty to provide health professionals and patients with the information they need to cut through the hype and to use (correctly) the drugs with the best risk-benefit ratios. (3) The draft modifications to the European Regulation on medicinal products published in 2002 would have made the situation even worse (and may still do so). Fortunately, the European Parliament reined in the Commission's eagerness to please the drugs industry. But all of us who want to see a European drugs policy that serves patients' best interests rather than stockholders' portfolios must remain vigilant in 2003.