A new piece of legislation in the U.S. House aims to increase clinical trials participation by allowing patients with rare diseases to become subjects in trials and not lose their government health insurance. The move is applauded by the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation as a new way to get medications from the research stage into the “hands of people who need them.” This is worth watching long term to see what the implications of this kind of fast-tracking is for drug development and for subjects and patients…. also, the FDA is putting tighter warnings on some asthma drugs because test facilities where some went through trials were not at all to up to par… All this plus industry news is in today’s update which you can read below…

New Legislation Seeks to Boost Participation in Clinical Trials … PR Newswire (press release) – New York, NY, USA – The “Improve Access to Clinical Trials Act” is co-sponsored by Representatives Edward J. Markey (D-MA) and Cliff Stearns (R-FL) and 30 members of the House … See all stories on this topic

FDA Move on Asthma Drug Warnings Comes After Complaints About … BNET – San Francisco, Ca, USA – The brazen “study buddy” and “crossover” arrangements, as staff referred to them, included churning or serially enrolling patients into clinical trials … See all stories on this topic