Responding to the avian flu pandemic in 2006, the UK government went on to spend £424m on stockpiling Tamiflu over six years, believing it to be money well spent.
Since then, however, full information from trials of the drug has been released to independent researchers at the Cochrane Collaboration, a global not-for-profit organisation. They concluded that while Tamiflu did reduce the length of time that symptoms were suffered, the drug came with side-effects and did not reduce the number of people taken to hospital.
“There is no credible way these drugs could prevent a pandemic,” said Carl Heneghan, professor of evidence-based medicine at Oxford University and a member of the Cochrane team.
The matter was also reviewed by MPs on the UK’s public accounts committee, who found there was “a lack of consensus over how well Tamiflu works, in particular whether it reduces complications and mortality”.
MPs added: “Discussions over this issue among professionals have been hampered because important information about clinical trials is routinely and legally withheld from doctors and researchers by manufacturers.”
Helena Viñes Fiestas, the head of sustainability at BNP Paribas, said the problem was repeated across the industry.
She has calculated that $40bn (£26bn) in fines have been paid by 21 drug firms for marketing malfeasance since 2007. Of that sum, 43% was directly related to minimising the side-effects that were identified during clinical trials but not properly reported.
“Alongside doctors and their patients, investors also risk being misled, given that an average of around 30% of pharmaceutical company valuations directly relates to the results of phase III clinical trials,” Fiestas said.
