After several years in which drug makers have been pressured to release clinical trial data, a new analysis finds many companies are still doing an incomplete or inconsistent job of being transparent.
Overall, 95 percent of the 42 companies reviewed – including the 25 largest drug makers, based on sales – had a publicly accessible policy. Otherwise, however, the specifics often varied wildly in terms of what is disclosed and even how to interpret some of the policies.
For instance, 71 percent of the companies had policies to register all trials going forward, only 50 percent of the company policies referred to trials conducted in the past, 69 percent of the policies included Phase IV, or post-marketing trials, and just 5 percent of companies conduct compliance audits. And not every drug maker committed to share results within 12 months of completing a trial.
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