European Medicines Agency's workshop on conflicts of interests today

6 September 2013

The European Medicines Agency's (EMA's) workshop on conflicts of interests, best expertise vs conflicts of interests: striking the right balance, is taking place today between 10.30am and 4.30pm London time.

A live broadcast of the workshop is available under the multimedia tab within the page linked above.

You can also join the debate on Twitter using the hashtag #coiworkshop.

The event is intended to elicit views and concerns from academia, patient organisations, committee representatives, non-governmental organisations and the pharmaceutical industry on the Agency's current conflicts-of-interests policy for committee members and experts – in particular on the question of how to ensure the impartiality and independence of experts involved in the Agency's work versus the need to continually deliver high-quality scientific assessments. Feedback from stakeholders will help the Agency to define and analyse the extent of the challenge, and will help it to find the most appropriate solution to address this.

The workshop will be moderated by Fernand Sauer, former Executive Director of the EMA. The Agency's current Executive Director, Guido Rasi, and Head of Patient Health Protection, Noël Wathion, will also address the workshop.

Speakers include:

• Matthias Groote (Chair, Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety, European Parliament);
• Anne Glover (Chief Scientific Adviser to the President of the European Commission);
• Wolf-Dieter Ludwig (Chair, Drug Commission of the German Medical Association);
• Rory Breathnach (Head of Small Animal Medicine, University College Dublin School of Veterinary Medicine);
• Daniel Brasseur (Chair, Paediatric Committee);
• Anja Holm (Chair, Committee for Medicinal Products for Veterinary Use);
• Serge Bakchine (Chair, Scientific Advisory Group on Neurology);
• Nikos Dedes (President, Association of People Living with HIV in Greece);
• Richard Bergström (Director-General, European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations);
• Martin Pigeon (Researcher, Corporate Europe Observatory);
• Pierre Chirac (Editor, Prescrire, Association Mieux Prescrire).

The Agency will publish a report summarising the key outcomes from the workshop within the next few weeks.