When something like this pops up, I think “agenda”. Then the next thing that comes to mind is money and timing.

http://www.gastrojournal.org/article/S0016-5085(13)01653-3/abstract

This in particular:

Conflicts of interest The authors disclose the following: Edward J. Gane has received grants and done research for Gilead, served on the advisory boards of AbbVie, Boehringer Ingelheim, Gilead, Janssen, Novartis, Roche, Tibotec; has been a speaker for Gilead, Novartis, Roche, Tibotec; has patents with Gilead. Catherine A. Stedman has received grants and done research for Gilead; served on the advisory boards of Janssen and Roche. Robert H. Hyland, Xiao Ding, Evguenia Svarovskaia, G. Mani Subramanian, William T. Symonds, John G. McHutchison, and Phillip S. Pang are current employees of Gilead Sciences.

Funding This trial was supported by Gilead Sciences .

M

Thanks M, I thought as much! Follow money always!

What’s that saying from Keating and Lange ‘in a 2 horse race, always back self interest because at least you know it’s trying’. Em

Prof Gane has been involved in many/most of the DAA trials in NZ and not just involving the company that makes Velpatasvir…..and at least two of the leading specialists in Aust have been involved in this country’s arms of the various phase trials for that drug. Same for U.S., Europe et al.

To some extent this comes down to whether we want to built a big wall between our medical specialists and Big Pharma. Do we want the Pharmas and their molecular chemists to just develop drugs on their own or do we want the safeguards and benefits provided when leading medical specialists have input into the design and approval process. And how do we avoid blatant self interest if the latter?

Well one way is via the Potential Conflict of Interest statement as quoted by mgalbrai. It is unfortunate that one of those was not included with the radio interview but good luck with that in regard to any of the public media outlets!

OTOH he participated in the interview along with Dr Freeman and while he provided what some may see as the “company line” and others a cautious medical establishment approach, he also supported supply chain integrity and did not make the connection between potential issues he foresaw and FixHepC sourced generics. That was done by members here.

Look, lots of interesting stuff but from within NZ, and Buyers Club, I’d like to say:

1) Prof. Ed Gane is an ally- not an enemy. The NZ Hep Foundation has been giving advice to people for over a month and anyone visiting any of their sites would have found their way here because of the prominence it has been given, from people who work there who care deeply about rapid access. If Prof Gane didn’t approve of that, it would not stay up. It has. This is much better govt sponsored access to information than other countries have experienced. He said anyone who couldn’t wait should look at generics, and directly congratulated Dr Freeman. In voicing his concerns, on RNZ, it gives him, as an advisor, more leverage when advising Pharmac to fund DAA’s and get the best price. It is perhaps the unequal weight he gave to his concerns, rather than congratulations that has concerned people. Being interviewed live is difficult and it is easy to repeat one’s important messages.

2) I too always want to know where the money comes and goes from, but it is, as noted, not possible for him to responsibly fill his position without running drug company sponsored trials.

3) Dr Freeman soaks up an enormous amount of pressure from all sides on our behalf, which isn’t going to let up until the SVRs roll in. I don’t think we should add to it- by showing our full confidence in him to manage the testing, the media, the medical support, trials, and everything else. This thread puts further pressure on him, to defend or respond- another burden he doesn’t need from us. He has answered all of these things before, and speaks highly of Ed Gane in another thread.