OECD urges countries to harmonise clinical trial regulations to boost medical research and save lives

Increasingly complex and inconsistent clinical trial regulations are causing delays, raising costs and leading to a decline in the number of international trials conducted by academics for non-commerical purposes. In the European Union alone, the number of applications for clinical trials fell by 25% between 2007 and 2011.

To boost medical research and help regulators overcome this problem, the OECD is calling on its member governments to harmonise their clinical trial approval processes. The aim is to encourage international collaboration in clinical research and streamline procedures for conducting clinical trials.

Doing so will open up research in treatments that are driven by pressing public health needs  but which currently offer few financial rewards for privatecompanies. This is the case for rare diseases, such as cystic fibrosis, and medical conditions for which treatments are not profitable, such as some pediatric diseases, or pathologies in developing countries.

“This policy guidance is optimized for reducing the burden of trial oversight as far as possible; it should greatly facilitate the current discussion on the new European regulations, and will make it much easier to run independent clinical trials in Europe,” said Professor Jacques Demotes, Director of the European Clinical Research Infrastructure Network, who led the expert group that drafted the OECD Recommendation.

Professor Susan Shurin, Deputy-Director of the US National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute, said: “We have been struggling to conduct international trials addressing important health problems. This Recommendation is a major achievement representing considerable effort by many scientists, physicians and regulators”.

The Recommendation is available at : http://oe.cd/trials

A memorandum has been developed to explain the context and to facilitate the implementation of the principles contained in the Recommendation, and is available here. More background material on the difficulties being encountered by the clinical research community in setting up international clinical trials is available at : http://oe.cd/bg-trials

For more information, journalists should contact Frédéric Sgard of the OECD Global Science Forum: tel. +33 1 45 24 78 09, frederic.sgard@oecd.org.

About the OECD: The OECD is the global economic policy forum. It provides analysis and advice to its 34 member governments and other countries worldwide, promoting better policies for better lives.