London

Tough measures designed to excise conflicts of interest from committees that regulate drugs have been proposed by the British government.

If the proposals are accepted, advisers on the panels that assess drug safety and performance, and report to the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA), will have to relinquish all financial interests in the pharmaceutical industry, health minister Norman Warner said on 11 November.

Committee members would also have to declare financial benefits, such as conference costs paid for by industry.

The move comes as pressure mounts on pharmaceutical companies and regulators in Europe and the United States. The MHRA has been the subject of television and newspaper investigations in recent months, which have alleged numerous conflicts of interest on the part of staff and advisers.

In the United States, officials at the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) have been accused of mishandling health scares associated with the painkiller Vioxx (rofecoxib) and a widely used class of antidepressants (see Nature 431, 122–124; 2004). In both cases, critics accused the FDA of acting in the interests of industry rather than patients.

The UK proposals, which are open for consultation until February, meet many of the demands made by patients' rights activists in the wake of these stories. In addition to ruling out direct pharmaceutical interests, members would have to declare relevant interests held by family members. Scientists on the committee would also have to say whether they have done any research relating to a particular product, even if that work was not funded by a pharmaceutical company.

Patients' groups in the United States have welcomed the proposals. “The British regulators are moving in the right direction and opening up the secretive club that binds drug-industry representatives and regulators,” says Vera Hassner Sharav of the Alliance for Human Research Protection in New York.

The Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry insists that the MHRA committees are already impartial, because members do not take part in discussions on drugs in which they have a financial interest. But the association accepts that “justice must not only be done but be seen to be done”.