CMPI conference on Media and Medical Science hears FDA chief

The USA-based think-tank, the Center for Medicine in the Public Interest, held a conference titled The Media and Medical Science: redefining Roles and Responsibilities, which featured a luncheon keynote speech from the Food and Drug Administration's Commissioner, Andrew von Eschenbach.

Dr von Eschenbach spoke of the agency's plans to utilize new outlets and methods for information disclosure, and that the FDA should move away from a "reactive stance on drug-safety issues," according to a report from the conference. The FDA's Commissioner also fielded questions about the adverse reporting system, to which he responded that he would like to see "unexpected efficacy" reporting procedures as well to be extracted.

The final panel of the one day conference held in Washington DC was on the FDA's Critical Path Initiative with Janet Woodcock, the agency's Deputy Commissioner, representatives of drugmakers and Michelle Hoffman, editor of Drug Discovery and Development. The panel considered the effects on reporting about biotechnology R&D of the "genomics hype" of recent years. Ms Woodcock told the meeting that the biggest problem for the FDA was lack of reviewer time to evaluate proposal properly.