THE ETHICS OF OFFSHORING CLINICAL TRIALS

Briefly summarize
the case, identify the ethical nature of the problem, along with the essential
elements and factors involved.

Answer each of the
questions at the end of the case and explain those answers.

>> THE ETHICS OF OFFSHORING CLINICAL TRIALS
The process of offshoring (outsourcing an
organizational function overseas) is being applied to clinical drug trials with
the same speed and enthusiasm as major U.S. corporations transplanting their
customer service call centers to countries such as Ireland, India, and
increasingly further eastern locations. In a report released in June 2010 by
Daniel R. Levinson, the inspector general of the Department of Health and Human
Services, 80 percent of the drugs approved for sale in 2008 had trials in
foreign countries, and 78 percent of all subjects who participated in clinical
trials were enrolled at foreign sites. Ten medicines approved in 2008 received
no domestic testing at all.
For U.S.-based pharmaceutical companies, the rush is
driven by both attractive options and practical realities:
• Pursuing the same cost advantages as other U.S.
corporations, drug companies are now discovering that trials in countries in
such regions as Eastern Europe, Asia, Latin America, and Africa can produce the
same quality of data at a lower cost and often in a shorter time frame.
• After
safety concerns over drugs like the anti-inflammatory Vioxx, which was
withdrawn from sale in 2004, regulators such as the Food and Drug
Administration (FDA) are now requiring even more data as a prerequisite for the
approval of a new drug. That equates to more trials enrolling more people for
longer periods of time—sometimes many thousands of patients over 12 months or
longer.
• Patients in North America are increasingly
unwilling to participate in phase 1 experimental trials, preferring instead to
participate in phase 2 or 3 trials where the effectiveness of the drug has
already been established and the trials are focused on identifying appropriate
dosage levels or potential side effects.
• In contrast, these new overseas trial sites offer
“large pools of patients who are ‘treatment naive’ because the relatively low
standard of health care compared with Western countries means they have not had
access to the latest and most expensive medicines.”
• In North American trials, each doctor may only be
able to offer a handful of patients who are willing and able to participate,
whereas in populous nations such as India and China, a single doctor may see
dozens of patients a day who would be willing trial participants, allowing
faster recruitment from a smaller number of sites.
However, pharmaceutical
companies don’t have everything their own way. Developing countries or not,
restrictions are in place either to directly prevent trials or, at the very
least, to ensure the professional and ethical management of those trials:
• Many developing countries have laws against “first
in person” trials to prevent the treatment of their citizens as guinea pigs in
highly experimental drug trials.
• Russia and China have both limited the export of
blood and patient tissue samples in recent years, partly out of concern over
illegal trafficking in human organs.
• The FDA recently set up an office in China to
increase inspections of the rapidly growing number of clinical trials.
• The World Medical Association’s 2004 Helsinki
declaration called for stringent ethical practices in drug trials, but these
remain voluntary practices.
In addition,
the rush to take advantage of these cost savings and practical benefits has
produced some problems ranging from questionable data to patient deaths:
• In 2003, several patients with AIDS died after an
experimental drug trial in Ditan Hospital in Beijing. Viral Genetics, a
California biotechnology company, was criticized for failing to explain
adequately to participants that they were taking part in a drug trial rather
than receiving a proven medicine.
• Further criticism was levied at Viral Genetics for
an issue that has become a greater concern for clinical drug trials in general—specifically
the use of a sugar pill or placebo as a comparative measure of the efficacy of
the drug. In the Ditan trial questions were raised as to why an antiretroviral
treatment—the most effective treatment for AIDS in the West—wasn’t used as a comparative
treatment.
• The lack of education and lower standards of care
in these developing countries also raise questions about patient eligibility
for participation in these trials. While they may qualify by diagnosis, do they
really understand the concept of informed consent, and, more importantly still,
do they realize that once the trial has ended, it may be months or years before
they have access to the drug for a prolonged treatment regimen for their
condition?
In the end, it is likely that basic economics will
win out. Increasingly stringent standards in North America, driven, some would
argue, by the litigious nature of our society, will only serve to increase the
attractiveness of overseas trials. Without a suitable regulatory framework to
oversee these trials and ensure that patients are treated in an ethical manner,
the feared picture of uneducated citizens from developing countries being used
as guinea pigs in experimental trials that citizens from developed nations are
unwilling to participate in will become a reality.
1. Identify three factors that are driving
pharmaceutical companies to host clinical drug trials overseas.
2. What regulations are in place to oversee the
professional and ethical management of these trials?
3. If patients lack the language skills or education
to understand the significance of informed consent or the use of a placebo, is
it ethical to allow them to participate in the drug trial? Why or why not?
4. What proposals would you offer to make the
offshoring of clinical drug trials a more ethical process for all the
stakeholders involved?