While the pill scandal Diane 35 bursts, many drugs get marketing authorizations (Marketing Authorization) even though their therapeutic value is questionable compared to the offer already present.
Unfavorable benefit-risk balance
For the review Prescribe, which takes stock of the year 2012 in its issue dated February, 15 new medications or new indications would even be dangerous on 82 quotations carried out. Their Side effects would be considered greater than the benefit they can bring to health.
Other drugs should also no longer be used and withdrawn from the market, according to Prescribe, because new, more effective molecules make them obsolete, or on the contrary because older drugs remain the best indicated. For some, their effectiveness is not greater than that of a simple placebo …
While the authors of the review recognize that “some beneficial measures for patients have been taken by the health authorities, in particular in terms of withdrawals from the market or delisting justified by the risks, but this is not enough.”
To remedy this influx of new drugs of little use or even risk to health, the journal Prescribe recommends “to significantly increase the funding of clinical research independent of firms; to set up a body of independent experts; to make compulsory a comparison of new drugs with reference treatments and to guarantee the quality and safety of packaging medication to prevent medication errors. “
