Criminal Story of a Prevention - Ukrainian Anti Cancer Institute

had been confirmed a long time previously by the Pharmacological Institute of the University
of Vienna.
In 1998 Spängler said that he had prepared a report for the Ministry of Science just a
few years previously. At that time there had been the first indication of the possibility of
continuous research into Ukrain. Had he been in favour of Ukrain? ‘Yes, of course!’
In 1993, as the drugs commission finally gave approval for wide-ranging clinical
studies, it became clear that these could not be carried out. The costs were set so high that
Nowicky had no chance of meeting them.
It was in exactly this year that the registration regulations were made more strict. As a
result, the process had become so expensive that small companies no longer had a chance
while large concerns were favoured. ‘Nowadays you have to reckon with 500 million dollars,
all in all, up to registration,’ said the German biologist Harald von Eick, who worked for a
pharmaceutical company for ten years and knows the business from the inside. Such high
sums can only be raised by big companies. Interestingly, no protests were heard from this
direction as costs for registration were increased. ‘The only voices raised in protest came from
medium-sized and small pharmaceutical companies who now have no chance of bringing
their drugs onto the market, no matter how good they are,’ said von Eick.
The competition was eliminated.
‘This process will intensify still more through the mergers of giant pharmaceutical
companies,’ says von Eick. ‘Small and medium-sized competition has been swept out of the
way. The question arises as to whether the pharmaceutical industry and the authorites, who
have always had a very close relationship, had not also been working together in this case.
Our cartel laws are obviously not good enough to prevent such mergers.’
And coming back to the case of Nowicky, ‘Without a distribution organisation it will
not work.’
He said that worldwide, ‘The clinical picture does not look at all bad. But the
authorities can always withold approval on formal grounds. There are already enough studies
available which show that patients treated with Ukrain improved, whereas the condition of the
control group was always worse.’
Von Eick says that for this reason alone, ‘It is an ethical duty to approve this substance
provisionally. If the studies currently in progress do not produce the expected results,
approval could be revoked. Then Nowicky would have the chance to finance the approval
procedure through the sale of Ukrain.’
In the same year that the registration regulations were made drastically stricter and the
Ministry of Health finally gave approval for clinical studies with Ukrain, there was yet
another meeting at the ministry which was intended to make clear to Nowicky how pointless
his efforts were. Present at this meeting in November 1993 were the registration civil servants
Jentzsch and Michtner, their head of department Liebeswar and the petitioner without a
chance, Nowicky. The subject was: clinical studies.
He was told that it was impossible for an individual researcher. ‘Only a large company
can have clinical studies carried out.’ Nowicky remembers that he was told, almost
triumphantly, that the total costs would run to 100 million dollars. Therefore, without a
company there was no chance.
‘Which company?’ Nowicky asked.
‘That doesn’t matter,’ was the answer.
‘When is it paid?’ he asked.
And again, ‘That doesn’t matter.’
‘If it doesn’t matter to you then I’ll set up a company myself.’
And Nowicky, who still did not think of giving up, founded Nowicky Pharma.
Of course, subsequently it proved impossible to carry out clinical studies. Nowicky
would have had to come up with at least € 70,000 per patient. And again when the Ministry of
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