Brussels, 28/01/2005 (Agence Europe) - The problems brought to light last year with the withdrawal of Vioxx have rekindled the debate in the United States on the lack of independence of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) from laboratories, and in Europe on the need for pharma-coviligance. The director of the London-based European Medicines Agency, Thomas Lönngrens, made his position clear in an interview with the Financial Times. “There is an urgent need to build up independent networks of intensive drug monitoring (…). If we had had better follow-up already in place, we might have discovered problems earlier”, said Mr Lönngrens, adding: “Depending on the financial capacity, we have to set up independent studies, probably selecting a number of products that reach a great part of the population [with] chronic well-known diseases, such as cardiovascular problems and diabetes”.