Archive

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Parliament is calling for the proposed European Union programme on AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis research to be expanded to include other diseases found in developing countries. It has adopted amendments allowing the programme’s Euro 600 million to be spent on clinical trials for drugs treating co-infections of these conditions.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has released detailed guidance on using the EU database on suspected unexpected serious adverse reactions to medicines in clinical trials; on the collection, verification and presentation of reports on such events; and on using the general EU clinical trials database EUDRACT.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
ROMANO Prodi, the president of the European Commission, has made an unusual direct appeal to the United States government to compromise in the ongoing World Trade Organisation (WTO) negotiations over granting developing countries access to cheap generic drugs.…

BY SWINEETHA DIAS WICKRAMANAYAKA
THE PRESIDENT of India, Dr A.P.J. Abdul Kalam has called for the creation of a database of plants used in his country for traditional medicinal purposes, to allow them to be researched and maybe exploited by the Indian pharmaceutical industry.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has released detailed information about pharmaceutical industry mutual recognition agreements struck between the European Union and the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. These trade-enabling regulations are available at http://pharmacos.eudra.org/F2/mra/doc/mraeccan.pdf;

http://pharmacos.eudra.org/F2/mra/doc/mraecus.pdf;

http://pharmacos.eudra.org/F2/mra/doc/mraeccau.pdf; and

http://pharmacos.eudra.org/F2/mra/doc/mraecnz.pdf…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE IMPENDING enlargement of the European Union, admitting countries that were once part of the communist eastern bloc, poses risks for the western European pharmaceutical sector, as well as benefits from the opening up of new markets, a senior industry figure has warned.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission is developing plans to set up a European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control, which would coordinate efforts by European Union (EU) Member States to fight outbreaks of communicable viruses such as SARS.

In a speech to the European Parliament, EU health Commissioner David Byrne said that this would be “the most effective way to strengthen EU activities” against this disease and others such as TB.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
A EURO 18 million budget for developing e-learning materials and systems in the European Union (EU) will be boosted to Euro 27 million, if changes made by the European Parliament to a planned 2004-6 programme prevail. MEP’s boosted its spending, citing the importance that EU institutions have placed on Internet-based education.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
BRITISH architects are among the most lightly regulated in the European Union (EU), with their Danish, Irish, Dutch and Swedish colleagues enjoying a similarly light regulatory burden, according to a European Commission-funded survey, promoting liberalisation in Europe’s professions.…

BY SWINEETHA DIAS WICKRAMANAYAKA
THE CREATION of standards certification schemes or the development of industrial parks for the leather industry should be promoted by south Asian governments, said the South Asia Association for Regional Co-operation (SAARC). This would help meet developed country demands for products that are not made with banned chemicals, by sweat shops or that cause environmental damage.…