Seems the potential conflicts-of-interests between private healthcare companies and government regulators are not limited to the US. The near-universal policy to follow-the-money seems to also hold true in the UK as well.
From the BJM Report:
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Big promises have been made for the Galleri blood test, which its maker, the Californian biotechnology company Grail, says is capable of detecting more than 50 types of cancer. Harpal Kumar, president of Grail Europe, has hailed the test as a “groundbreaking and potentially life-saving advance that could have a tremendous human and economic benefit.”
The NHS is currently running a £150m trial of the test, involving more than 100 000 participants in England. Depending on the results, the plan is to roll out a further pilot involving up to one million tests.12 If effective, the test would help the NHS meet its target to diagnose 75% of cancers at an early stage by 2028. Trial success would also hand Grail a lucrative deal; although contract details remain confidential, a single test in the US currently retails for $950 (£750; €880).
Multicancer early detection tests such as Galleri are touted as a game changer. Instead of screening for one disease at a time, as the NHS does for breast, bowel, and cervical cancer, for example, technology now exists that has the potential to test for dozens of cancers from a single blood sample.
But experts believe that Galleri has been overhyped and that the current trial is unethical. Concern is mounting over why this particular new screening test has been selected, how it is being evaluated, and whether the bar to success has been set too low.
New evidence
Documents leaked to The BMJ indicate that the criteria being used, unpublished until now, are unsuitable to justify a new national screening programme aimed at saving lives.
They show that even Mike Richards, the chair of the independent UK National Screening Committee, has privately voiced “serious concerns” to Amanda Pritchard, NHS England’s chief executive, about the trial and its ability to provide sufficient evidence “on whether the benefits of testing outweigh any potential harms and at reasonable cost.”
Other documents obtained by The BMJ detail the deal between the NHS and Grail, raising questions about whether it is too industry friendly. As well as agreeing to buy one million tests after satisfactory completion of the first stage of the trial,1 the NHS has committed itself to buying five million more tests by 2030 if the test fulfils certain criteria, show documents seen by The BMJ. In return, Grail would build a “new state-of-the-art test processing and sequencing facility in the UK once the NHS commits to purchasing minimum annual volumes, keeping the UK at the global forefront of clinical application of genomics.”3
Richard Sullivan, director of the Institute of Cancer Policy at King’s College London, says that the Grail deal is a “clear cut case of public risk and private profit.” He says, “It is following a pattern established in this country over the past decade where the regulatory or evidential bar is being set lower and lower in favour of the private sector, with the public sector (that is, our taxes) taking all the risk.”
Added to these concerns, it emerged in June that Grail is facing a class action lawsuit in the US.4 Embittered investors, faced with steep losses, claim that the company exaggerated Galleri’s effectiveness to increase its share price. The plaintiffs claim it was “false and misleading” that the rollout would “save tens of thousands of lives.” A Grail spokesperson told The BMJ that they “don’t comment on ongoing litigation.”
(emphasis added)
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Here is link to the full BJM Report:
Galleri promises to detect multiple cancers—but new evidence casts doubt on this much hyped blood test, the BJM, Feature, BJM Investigation, BJM 2024, (Published 07 August 2024).
Caveat emptor is often shelved when public money is being spent on our behalf.
Stay S&W, Ciao - cujoe
PS An inappropriate reference noted in mateobeach's comment below was removed by cujoe on 11 Aug 24. 🙊 ☮
