… “The pharmaceutical industry has “mobilised” an army of patient groups to lobby against plans to force companies to publish secret documents on drugs trials.”

We asked pharmaceutical companies to confirm whether or not they support the strategy of their own lobby groups, EFPIA in Europe and PhRMA in the U.S.A., to mobilise patient groups in the debate about clinical trial transparency, as reported in the Guardian article.

These are the responses from companies so far:

GSK said: “This is not something we are doing. One of the reasons we’re involved in Alltrials is we want more companies to move towards greater transparency. I don’t think it’s for us to be mobilising patient groups to campaign on a negative level.”

A Roche spokesperson said the company consulted patient groups to understand their concerns about clinical trials, but “to our knowledge Roche has not been involved in any activity in mobilising patient groups…”.

A Lilly spokesman said: “Lilly is committed to working with Europe-based patient advocacy organisations for the benefit of patients in a way that is true to the code of practice and Lilly’s integrity in business policy.”

Sanofi told us: “I would rather say that Sanofi believes in discussing with patient groups to better understand what their concerns and needs are, and to ensure they are aware of the growing commitment of the biopharmaceutical industry to share data with researchers and patients.”

Boehringer Ingelheim: “I can confirm that there is NO strategy of Boehringer Ingelheim to mobilize patient groups in the discussion on clinical trial transparency, in particular, into lobbying against the EU plans on clinical trial data publication.”