A £3 pill which is supposed to cut cravings for booze among binge drinkers may not actually work, researchers say. 

Nalmefene was introduced in Britain in 2014 as a drug to help curb the appetite for alcohol among problem drinkers. 

But a study published by the University of Stirling yesterday (Monday) said the research which led to the drug being prescribed in the UK was faulty.

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The study said only three trials were carried out by the drug's Danish manufacturers Lundbeck and the main focus of these trials shifted once the makers started to see different results. 
Many people also dropped out before the end of the process, the study found. 

Evidence of the pill's effectiveness was found to be weak, 

The study said the pill had a minimal effect on patients with people taking it found to only have one less drink per day on average. 

The pill was also found to be more expensive than similar drugs and no comparison had been made with these alternatives during the trials. 

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Dr Niamh Fitzgerald, a pharmacist and lecturer in alcohol studies at the University of Stirling, questioned why health watchdogs at NICE (the National Institute of Healthcare and Excellence) gave the go-ahead for the drug to be prescribed based on the evidence provided by the manufacturer. 

She said: "We found multiple problems with the way the trials for this drug were conducted. 

"We can't tell whether it's effective or not and we normally don't licence drugs unless we have really strong evidence that it is effective so that's what we're saying the evidence isn't yet strong enough 

"If the pharmaceutical company believe that it's effective then it should have continued and conducted further trials to prove that. 

"We require people to prove that the drugs are effective rather than just assume that they are based on unplanned analysis. 

"We want to know how the system has failed in such a way that a drug with not good enough evidence has been licensed and has been recommended by NICE. 

"It's very hard to justify prescribing this drug over and above the comparator which is a generic drug which is much cheaper until such time that we can prove the drug is better than the comparator. 

"It raises questions as to how strong the regulatory system is and what other drugs are out there that may have gone through without the evidence being strong enough." 

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Dr Fitzgerald is not the first to call into question the effectiveness the trials conducted into nalmefene, also known on the market as Selincro. 

In 2013, the one-a-day tablet was approved for use in Europe - but the German equivalent of NICE did not give approval for it having concluded it was inferior to similar pills. 

At the time of its decision in 2014, Professor Carole Longson of NICE said: "Alcohol dependence is a serious issue for many people. Nalmefene is clinically and cost effective." 

The drug is targeted at people who drink more than two glasses of wine a day or more than two pints of beer.