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Ro-Accutane/isotretinoin News

LONDON (Reuters) -  11 August 2010 Roaccutane, isotretinoin News

The European Medicines Agency has agreed to provide access to studies about drug side effects, following criticism over data secrecy from the European Ombudsman.

The move could help people hoping to take legal action against drugmakers and highlights the pressure on healthcare regulators to make more information about drug safety available to the public.

A spokeswoman for the agency said that the London-based watchdog would release the information requested about Roche's acne drug Accutane by an Irish citizen whose son committed suicide "within the next few weeks."

The EMA had argued that European transparency rules did not apply to serious adverse reaction reports, given the need to protect patient confidentiality.

But, in a change of heart, the organization has now agreed to release such reports, after first deleting personal data that would allow identification of individual patients.

The agency said the same principle would be applied to other requests for access to individual drug reaction reports.

Liam Grant is the Irish citizen mentioned above and had spent a lot of his savings in order to take Roche to court but all went quiet just a few months before the expected High Court Case.

We had eagerly awaited the outcome but quite understand Liam was probably burnt out by several years of fighting for the right to take a huge pharmaceutical companyt to court following his son's death. His wife had died and he had spent most of his retirement savings. However Liam did manage to fund studies including a study by a genetecist into claims by Roche that Acne can lead to suicide. The study found there had been few if any suicides on other acne treatments.

US Lawyer who spoke at our 2004 conference had analysed the stats for suicides linked to Accutane and found it was the drug most linked to suicides on the FDA data base.

Accutane, or Roaccutane, which Roche said last year it would stop selling because of generic competition, has had a controversial history since its launch in 1982.

While powerful at clearing acne, the drug has been linked to birth defects if taken during pregnancy and has also been suspected of causing mental side effects, although Roche has vigorously defended personal injury claims in this area.

(Reporting by Ben Hirschler; Editing by Louise Heavens)

For more information about adverse drug reactions (ADRs) put the search words into the PatientUK search box.

Many court cases have gone forward and failed : https://www.fiercepharma.com/pharma/facing-thousands-accutane-liability-claims-roche-wins-appeal-18m-jury-verdict

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