Patients who volunteer for studies that help drug companies to develop new products are often misled into taking part, say research ethicists in the latest edition of the British Medical Journal. The ethicists have called on drug companies to immediately end what they say is a “cynical use of these studies for marketing purposes”.When developing new drugs, most pharmaceutical companies carry out open label extension studies (OLES) which enable them to collect data after clinical trials have been carried out but before the drug receives final approval.
