Big Pharma snared by net

September 29, 2004

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by Cheryll Barron

Sunday September 26, 2004

The Observer

" What if ants could turn the microscopes on the scientists studying

them and, after beady-eyed surveillance, demand a revolution in their

scrutinisers' accustomed ways?

This is more than a variation on Lilliputians for a new Jonathan Swift

to consider; it's a metaphor for a real-life reversal of multinational

power that has no precedent.

....What no one foresaw was the shocking extent to which the internet

would change the terms of trade between corporations and society.

Certainly not that one of the world's largest drug companies, which is

among the richest and most influential industries of all time, would

be the first victim of the shift.

....Health campaigners trying to decide what the pharmas could

reasonably be blamed for shared vast stores of data about such

complexities by - among other means - encyclopaedic technical postings

on their websites. Some of these sites also feature open access to

years of correspondence between the activists and regulatory officials

and pharma executives. Postings like these have allowed rapid

international co-ordination between the campaigners.

Pharmas bent on redeeming their reputations have suddenly begun to use

the internet to publish what they once fought for the right to

conceal. GSK's first notable response to the filing of the recent

lawsuit was to start posting both negative and positive findings from

drug tests on its web site. But it is far from the only pharma with a

history of secretiveness about trials, and at least three of its

rivals have copied its turnabout, with Eli Lilly and Merck making the

most radical moves towards transparency.

Even top-ranking pharma executives might not yet grasp that this is

only the start of a progressive stripping away of power. "

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