Overview

Every day, children throughout Europe are given medicines that have only been evaluated on adults, even though their effects and side effects may differ considerably and, in some cases, the children may be exposed to considerable risk. There are many challenges in evaluating medicines in children. These have been addressed by measures, initially in the USA but subsequently in the EU, that incentives manufacturers to evaluate the use of their drugs in children, with valuable extensions on patent life. However, so far, the response from industry has been quite limited