IQWiG (Drug quality control in Germany)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Institute_for_Quality_and_Efficiency_in_Health_Care

In Germany drug makers have to prove to IQWiG that their products are good compared to the ones already available, then only Govt. buys from that drug maker. Not many western countries are courageous and honest enough do this. In US Medicare and Medicaid are paid by Govt., and Govt. does not even negotiate for cheap price. Drug maker does not have to prove anything about superiority to sell to Govt.


US is a dream customer for Pharma



EMA and FDA

EMA is the agency responsible for regulating medicines in EU. EMA is counterpart of FDA. Till recently EMA was not forth coming in sharing drug-trail data with independent researches like Cochrane. The reason given by EMA were:

- 'these documents have commercial data'
- 'these documents have patient personal data'
- 'these documents have data about the design of clinical trail'
- 'documents  were shredded because it passed legal hold period'.
-'you can use the data for analysis but should not publish the results'

Going by these excuses EMA is representing drug makers, not the people or tax payers.

Independent researcher's struggle with EMA
http://www.cochrane.dk/research/EMA/

Now EMA has made all drug-trail data available for scrutiny.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/07/15/us-europe-medicines-idUSBRE86E04I20120715