By Nourhan Fahmy The Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights (EIPR) issued on Tuesday its report on clinical drug trials in Egypt, raising questions about the ethics and legality of the process. As the second-biggest destination country for clinical trials in Africa, Egypt has witnessed a steady increase in the number of trials it hosts, with the number nearly tripling between 2008 and 2011, the report says. The trials, which are sponsored by transnational pharmaceutical companies (TNCs), have considerably expanded in the past 20 years, shifting towards offshoring medicine testing in low- and middle-income settings. Egypt is considered a popular destination for conducting clinical trials in the MENA region because of “an attractive research infrastructure, a fast-growing and largely treatment-naïve population and lower costs,” the report states. EIPR researcher Ayman al-Sabaa explained during a press conference on Tuesday that “treatment-naïve” means individuals who have not received earlier treatment for a given illness, making them respond better to the medication. Egyptian regulations allow a foreign drug trial to be conducted only if the product being tested has been granted market approval in the originating country, according to the report. There were 57…
In Egypt, Clinical Trials on the Rise Amid Ethical and Legal Concerns
October 19, 2016
