Healthy Skepticism Library item: 558

Warning: This library includes all items relevant to health product marketing that we are aware of regardless of quality. Often we do not agree with all or part of the contents.

Publication type: Journal Article

Hopf G.
Early stopping of trials.
Lancet 1997 Sep 20; 350:(9081):891

Keywords:
*letter to the editor Germany The Liposome Company drug company sponsored research Pfizer SPONSORSHIP: RESEARCH

Notes:

Pfizer and The Liposome Company stopped a German trial looking at therapy in metastatic breast cancer. The reason given was not scientific or ethical considerations but that the “current protocol did not meet the strategic direction in which The Liposome Company wished to” proceed. The real “sponsors” of this trial, the patients, may have suffered inconveniences or even contributed their lives to a study now stopped for strategic reasons.