article_snippet.sent: A drug company has been accused of trying to block trials aimed at promoting a ‘cheap, safe and effective’ treatment for sight loss on the NHS.
article_snippet.sent: A drug company has ‘bullied’ experts who have tried to prove that a cancer drug can be used to treat one of the most common forms of blindness, according to the BMJ.
article_snippet.sent: Drug company Novartis has been accused of trying to block trials aimed at promoting a ‘cheap, safe and effective’ treatment for sight loss which would save the NHS around £102million a year .
article_snippet.sent: ‘do everything’ it can to stop trials of the drug.
article_snippet.sent: Dr Fiona Godlee, said the new evidence ‘raises questions about the legal and regulatory positions that have skewed clinical practice, fuelled NHS drug costs, and left doctors confused about what doctors can and can’t prescribe’.
article_snippet.sent: She said: ‘Doctors and academics have carried out clinical trials despite threats and intimidation – and doctors leaders should follow suit and not allow threats and intimidation – and doctors leaders to be bullied either.
article_snippet.sent: ‘Doctors’ leaders also need to sort out the web of misinformation about drug prescribing that has been generated behind closed doors and is costing the NHS hundreds of millions of pounds a year by scaring doctors from using cheap and effective medicines.
article_snippet.sent: A spokesman said: ‘We stand by We decision to challenge the trial, which was motivated entirely by We aim to protect patients’ right to timely sight-saving treatment.
highlights_snippet.sent: Drug company accused of trying to block trials aimed at promoting a 'cheap, safe and effective' treatment for sight loss on the NHS .
  
highlights_snippet.sent: It 'bullied' experts who tried to prove drug can be used to treat blindness .
  