Healthy Skepticism Library item: 19404

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Publication type: news

Jack A
Former pharma watchdog faces restrictions
The Finanical Times 2011 Mar 21
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/73c0a4aa-53ce-11e0-a01c-00144feab49a.html#axzz1Hn0XT9Aj

Full text:

The European Medicines Agency has imposed tough restrictions on any work carried out over the next two years by its former executive director in an effort to limit any potential conflicts of interest.

The management board of the London-based agency rejected recent concerns by some health organisations that Thomas Lönngren risked misuse of confidential information or improper influence over decision-making by taking on consultancies and board positions since he stepped down last December.

But it imposed a series of prohibitions until 2013 on “taking managerial and executive positions in the pharmaceutical industry, and on providing product-related advice with regard to activities falling within the remit of the agency”.

Members of the management board also “regretted the late notification by Mr Lönngren of details of his activities”, according to a statement released by the agency, which scrutinises safety and efficacy in medicines across the European Union.

Mr Lönngren has become an adviser to NDA, a consultancy that advises drug companies, as well as a non-executive director of an Australian biotech business.

Five Brussels-based consumer organisations expressed concern in February about the appointment, saying that Mr Lönngren had taken on work for “pharmaceutical companies whose products his previous role would have evaluated and authorised” without any “cooling off” period or restrictions on his future work.

The groups called on the European Commission to re-examine whether conflict of interest rules had been “sufficiently and duly respected”.

The concerns – also separately raised by two European parliamentarians – follow other recent conflicts of interest debates in Brussels. Charlie McCreevy, the former internal market commissioner, was forced to step down in October as a director of NBNK Investments, and conditions were imposed on the contracts signed at his new consultancy by Günter Verheugen, the former industry commissioner.

Mr Lönngren, who has been critical of the pharmaceutical industry, played an important role in building the London-based EMA in the past decade. He was in charge of management and strategy; separate scientific committees of experts nominated directly by EU member states to scrutinise new drugs and recommend their approval or rejection.