Industrial interests versus public health: the gap is growing.

(1) Drug companies pretending to innovate; health authorities pretending to regulate; medicines agencies pretending to be transparent: the main players in the medicines roadshow had their hands full in 2003, with little time for patients and their daily concerns. (2) On a more optimistic note, 2003 also saw civil society contributing forcefully to the debate on the future European legislative framework on medicines. One result is that medicines agencies will have to be more transparent in future.