Red tape 'undermines drug trials

Some of the country's leading medical researchers claim "red tape" is undermining their ability to conduct drug trials and threatening the lives of patients.

They say new EU regulations - designed to update and harmonise the approval and monitoring of clinical research across Europe - are excessively bureaucratic and smothering vital research. Far from streamlining the process, the new rules have introduced a "tick-box" approach that's stifling the development of new drugs and treatments.

The Oxford epidemiologist Professor Rory Collins says the new rules are making it increasingly hard - and expensive - to conduct large multi-centre drug trials in the UK and that people are dying unnecessarily as a result.

"Trials are not being done that should have been done," he says. "They're not being done as fast, and because of the increased cost, they're often smaller and therefore less reliable.

"There's absolutely no doubt that the regulations are leading to increased disability and death."

The impact of the new regulations is already being felt across the research sector. The UK's share of global drug trials has dropped from six to two percent in five years.

Drug companies are increasingly turning to the Far East, where the figure has risen from two to ten percent over the same period.

The president of the Academy of Medical Sciences, Sir John Bell, says that will have profound implications for the UK knowledge economy.