US Senator Wants To Probe FDA Over 'Pay To Play' Meetings

A US Senator wants to open an investigation into a behind-the-scenes panel called IMMPACT, which is run privately by a pair of academics, who hold brainstorming sessions with FDA officials and drugmakers on ways to improve clinical trials, notably involving prescription painkillers. The panel acronym stands for Initiative on Methods, Measurement and Pain Assessment in Clinical Trials (look here). Why? The drugmakers were required to pay big fees to participate – as much as $35,000 to attend a single meeting. The disclosure, which was made in various reports earlier this week, has raised uncomfortable questions for the FDA, because the arrangement smacks of a ‘pay to play’ atmosphere that could benefit the pharmaceutical industry. “I am gravely concerned by the allegations of ‘pay to play’ between the FDA and pain medicine companies and am calling for a full investigation to see how deep this goes,” says US Senator Joe Manchin, a West Virginia Democrat, in a statement in which he announced that a letter was sent to FDA commish Margaret Hamburg to demand documents pertaining to agency involvement with the panel. “If these allegations are true, they explain why it has taken the FDA almost a year to reach a decision to reschedule hydrocone even after their own expert advisory panel recommended it. It is a shame that some of these companies were able to influence FDA’s decision with a $25,000 contribution, while West Virginian families are destroyed by the addict...
Source: Pharmalot - Category: Pharma Commentators Authors: Source Type: blogs