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U.K. government calls for more drug regulation

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Pharmaceutical companies in the United Kingdom should be more heavily regulated, and that country’s main drug watchdog needs to undergo a “fundamental review,” an inquiry by a parliamentary panel suggested.

According to a report by Bloomberg, the inquiry is the first in 90 years into the U.K. pharmaceutical industry. Among the panel’s complaints are a lack of accessibility of data and the “intensity” of product promotion. The panel found a “major failing in the regulatory system,” according to Bloomberg. An independent review of the Medicines and Healthcare regulatory agency was requested.

The panel stated that the regulatory agency is “unable to accept that it had any obvious shortcomings,” Bloomberg reported. The panel further complained that patients, the scientific community and the general public should receive more information and that the agency does not communicate well, when it communicates at all.