Call to action for geritaricians to engage with drug evaluation for older adults

Despite the fact that older people are major users of medicines and experience the highest rate of adverse drug events, they are still generally excluded from clinical trials evaluating new therapies. This exclusion – which constitutes a clear example of age discrimination in health care - prevents physicians from having the necessary information concerning the efficacy and safety of medicines for their use in older patients and it obliges them to use medicines in patients in whom these medicines have never been tested. This situation has been consistently demonstrated by scientific studies during the last 20 years. Therefore, the EuGMS applauds the current initiative by AGS to address the lack of inclusion of older people in new drug evaluation, which is in concordance with the efforts of our own task force on Pharmaceutical strategy and supports the opportunity for collaboration and joint actions on this topic. It becomes obvious that without a mandatory request to evaluate new medicines in older people and related incentives it is very unlikely that the situation will change.

link call: https://agsjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/jgs.17294