PharmAware Blog

PharmAware is forming close ties with the Drug and Therapeutics Bulletin. DTB aims to provide informed and unbiased information on medical conditions, medicines and other treatments to enable people to make informed choices. It is wholly independent of the pharmaceutical industry, Government and regulatory authorities. DTB is also free of advertising and other forms of commercial sponsorship. (To find out more information please look at http://www.dtb.org.uk/info/about.dtl)

The August 2008 issue of Drug and Therapeutics Bulletin (DTB) has two articles, the first being a drug review of both rituximab and ▼abatacept, and their role in the treatment of patients with rheumatoid arthritis. The second article reviews ▼tigecycline, a broad-spectrum antibacterial, and the first in its class, licensed for complicated skin, soft tissue and intra-abdominal infections. The issue also contains a short correction relating to our June 2008 article on Surgery for obesity in adults.

Several Italian researchers and clinicians have sent open letters to the media in recent weeks to protest about the removal of Nello Martini as the head of the Italian drug regulatory agency, Agenzia Italiana del Farmaco. The group say that Dr Martini was doing an exemplary job. He had kept the agency free from drug industry pressure and had managed to contain the Italian drugs bill to 13% of the country’s health expenditure. But in doing so he incurred the industry’s wrath.

The situation began with an incident earlier this year in which a member of the agency was arrested for alleged falsification of data (BMJ 2008;336:1208-9, doi: 10.1136/bmj.39591.450856.DB). That investigation is still ongoing. Dr Martini was himself accused of “causing unintentional disaster” by failing to update the safety warnings on many drugs.

BMJ 2008;337:a1276