No such thing as partial transparency

Oct/13/2007 07:29 Filed in: Pharma Business
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The writer at Pharmalot has stumbled onto an open sore for Lilly's Cialis. It seems that although Lilly boasts of 22 clinical trials with Cialis it has only posted a few of the clinical trial results on its website. While Lilly claims that some of the trials will be posted as they continue to transition the business from Icos there are also some which will NOT be posted, This can only lead one to believe that Lilly is in fact hiding something and has not learned anything from their missteps with Zyprexa.



Transparency is becoming an absolute necessity in business today. More and more companies and CEO's are stepping forward and saying "we screwed up and we want you to know why". It seems that in pharma the rules seems to be "if it's not good lets keep it hidden". What message does this set for the rest of employees when closed door meetings are held to determine which data can and should be released? At least Pfizer's Viagra boasts of a wealth of clinical studies and has the data on its website. On Cialis.com you will find little information if any on clinical trials.


This is more of issue for one company as it is for the whole industry. Pharma likes to hide clinical trial data when the results can be questioned or used by competitors to show an advantage. Pfizer recently came under fire for showing a new SEC form that requires an MBA and PhD to decipher. At a time when consumer trust of the pharma industry is at an all time low the decision NOT to post clinical trial information is unacceptable. The author of Pharmalot says it best;

Transparency, it seems, is in the mind of the beholder. Again, Lilly does disclose a lot of info. But the ceo uses the word ‘all,’ while in reality, the company is selective. Lilly has the Cialis data and, presumably, has the werewithal to post the trials on the site. A failure to do so, however, may lead one to ask if something is being hidden, which undermines the whole enterprise. And so, there is transparency. And then, there are mirrors.

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