Wellcome Trust chief executive Jeremy Farrar and other senior doctors have said that the UK cannot test treatments quickly enough to deal with a major disease outbreak, the Guardian has reported.
“The systems we have got in place are not fit for purpose when the situation is moving quickly,” Farrar is quoted as saying. “We have nothing that enables us to respond in real time.” His comments, in the article published on 31 March, were supported by Michael Rawlins, president of the Royal Society of Medicine, and Peter Openshaw, a professor of experimental medicine and director of the centre for respiratory infections at Imperial College London.
The clinical trials approval process holds up the process, Farrar said. He reportedly recommended that the system be changed to make it possible for trials to begin within 24 hours of the start of an epidemic.
This article on Research Professional News is only available to Research Professional or Pivot-RP users.
Research Professional users can log in and view the article via this link
Pivot-RP users can log in and view the article via this link.