The Guidance for industry published by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) was devised to make the process of developing and reviewing Patient Reported Outcome (PRO) measures more efficient and transparent. Tim Davis of Exco InTouch explains the guidance.

Adam Jacobs, Director of Dianthus Medical Limited looks into headlines such as “Evil Big Pharma kills patients in bid for global domination”, and concludes that it is of the utmost importance to be aware of the potential for bias and to guard against it with systematic review the default position whenever a review paper is felt to be useful.

Drug development consultancy and medical communications both require clinical and scientific excellence, and the services are inherently linked. The data generated during drug development drives our understanding not only of the drug itself, but also the biology of disease.

Gareth Maguire of Almac Group explores models of overcoming hurdles such as long timelines, towering costs and soaring rates of attrition, in a world where the future growth of our economies is largely dependent on innovation from the pharmaceutical sector.

Scott Berry of Berry Consultants & Tom Parke of Tessella discusses the considerable scope to exploit new trial designs in the development of cancer treatments.