§ Llew SmithTo ask the Secretary of State for Health if he will take steps to provide the National Institute for Clinical Excellence with additional powers to ensure negative test results by pharmaceutical companies are published; and what mechanisms are in place to ensure that health regulators assessing the safety of drugs for general release are able to make judgments based on unbiased data sets. [175780]
§ Ms Rosie WintertonRegarding the National Institute for Clinical Excellence, I refer my hon. Friend to the reply I gave on 18 May 2004,Official Report, column 995W, to my hon. Friend the Member for West Bromwich, East (Mr. Watson) and the reply given on 19 May 2004, Official Report, column 1027W, by the Under-Secretary of State for Health, the hon. Member for Welwyn Hatfield (Miss Johnson) to the hon. Member for Portsmouth, South (Mr. Hancock).
Mechanisms are in place to ensure that health regulators assessing the safety of drugs for general release are able to make judgments based on unbiased data sets. Pharmaceutical legislation specifically requires that all information which is relevant to the evaluation of the medicinal product concerned shall be included in the application, whether favourable or unfavourable to the product.