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Science 19 July 1996:
Vol. 273. no. 5273, pp. 318 - 319
DOI: 10.1126/science.273.5273.318
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Policy Forum

Douglas Berger and Isao Fukunishi

A wide variety of drugs prescribed by psychiatrists in Western countries are not yet available in Japan. The manufacturers of these drugs are often reluctant to conduct the expensive clinical trials required by the Japanese government for their approval; they have already incurred such expenses in other countries, and the market for psychiatric drugs in Japan can be uncertain. Moreover, the Japanese clinical trial system has many methodological problems, which the government has only now started to address. An international agreement to make the results of drug trials reciprocal among participating countries would reduce costs for governments as well as drug manufacturers.

D. Berger is at the Tokyo Institute of Psychiatry, 2-1-8, Kamikitazawa, Setagayaku, Tokyo 156, Japan, and at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Bronx, NY 10461, USA. I. Fukunishi is at the Tokyo Institute of Psychiatry, 2-1-8, Kamikitazawa, Setagayaku, Tokyo 156, Japan.

Volume 273, Number 5273, Issue of 19 July 1996, pp. 318-319
©1996 by The American Association for the Advancement of Science.

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THIS ARTICLE HAS BEEN CITED BY OTHER ARTICLES:
Psychopharmacology in a Globalizing World: The Use of Antidepressants in Japan.
L. J. Kirmayer (2002)
Transcultural Psychiatry 39, 295-322
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