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ObjectivesTo define a series of clinical trial transparency measures and apply them to large pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies and their 2014 FDA-approved drugs.DesignCross-sectional descriptive analysis of all clinical trials supporting 2014 Food and Drugs Administration (FDA)-approved new drug applications (NDAs) for novel drugs sponsored by large companies.Data sourcesData from over 45 sources, including Drugs@FDA.gov, ClinicalTrials.gov, corporate and international registries; PubMed, Google Scholar, EMBASE, corporate press releases, Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filings and personal communications with drug manufacturers.Outcome measuresTrial registration, results reporting, clinical study report (CSR) synopsis sharing, biomedical journal publication, and FDA Amendments Acts (FDAAA) compliance, analysed on the drug level.ResultsThe FDA approved 19 novel new drugs, sponsored by 11 large companies, involving 553 trials, in 2014. We analysed 505 relevant trials. Per drug, a median of 100% (IQR 86%–100%) of trials in patients were registered, 71% (IQR 57%–100%) reported results or shared a CSR synopsis, 80% (70%–100%) were published and 96% (80%–100%) were publicly available in some form by 13 months after FDA approval. Disclosure rates were lower at FDA approval (65%) and improved significantly by 6 months post FDA approval. Per drug, a median of 100% (IQR 75%–100%) of FDAAA-applicable trials were compliant. Half of reviewed drugs had publicly disclosed results for all trials in patients in our sample. One trial was uniquely registered in a corporate registry, and not ClinicalTrials.gov; 0 trials were uniquely registered in international registries.ConclusionsAmong large pharmaceutical companies and new drugs, clinical trial transparency is high based on several standards, although opportunities for improvement remain. Transparency is markedly higher for trials in patients than among all trials supporting drug approval, including trials in healthy volunteers. Ongoing efforts to publicly track companies’ transparency records and recognise exemplary companies may encourage further progress.

Objectives To develop and pilot a tool to measure and improve pharmaceutical companies’ clinical trial data sharing policies and practices. Design Cross sectional descriptive analysis. Setting Large pharmaceutical companies with novel drugs approved by the US Food and Drug Administration in 2015. Data sources Data sharing measures were adapted from 10 prominent data sharing guidelines from expert bodies and refined through a multi-stakeholder deliberative process engaging patients, industry, academics, regulators, and others. Data sharing practices and policies were assessed using data from ClinicalTrials.gov, Drugs@FDA, corporate websites, data sharing platforms and registries (eg, the Yale Open Data Access (YODA) Project and Clinical Study Data Request (CSDR)), and personal communication with drug companies. Main outcome measures Company level, multicomponent measure of accessibility of participant level clinical trial data (eg, analysis ready dataset and metadata); drug and trial level measures of registration, results reporting, and publication; company level overall transparency rankings; and feasibility of the measures and ranking tool to improve company data sharing policies and practices. Results Only 25% of large pharmaceutical companies fully met the data sharing measure. The median company data sharing score was 63% (interquartile range 58-85%). Given feedback and a chance to improve their policies to meet this measure, three companies made amendments, raising the percentage of companies in full compliance to 33% and the median company data sharing score to 80% (73-100%). The most common reasons companies did not initially satisfy the data sharing measure were failure to share data by the specified deadline (75%) and failure to report the number and outcome of their data requests. Across new drug applications, a median of 100% (interquartile range 91-100%) of trials in patients were registered, 65% (36-96%) reported results, 45% (30-84%) were published, and 95% (69-100%) were publicly available in some form by six months after FDA drug approval. When examining results on the drug level, less than half (42%) of reviewed drugs had results for all their new drug applications trials in patients publicly available in some form by six months after FDA approval. Conclusions It was feasible to develop a tool to measure data sharing policies and practices among large companies and have an impact in improving company practices. Among large companies, 25% made participant level trial data accessible to external investigators for new drug approvals in accordance with the current study’s measures; this proportion improved to 33% after applying the ranking tool. Other measures of trial transparency were higher. Some companies, however, have substantial room for improvement on transparency and data sharing of clinical trials.

Although the overwhelming majority of study volunteers want to receive information on the results of their participation in clinical trials, research suggests that most study volunteers never do. CISCRP - an independent nonprofit organization - in collaboration with Pfizer, conducted a study evaluating the feasibility and impact of a new process to inform study volunteers of the results of their clinical trials. Two process components were evaluated via surveys, focus groups, and interviews with volunteers and investigative site staff: a series of ongoing post-trial communications to set expectations for when trial results would be received; and routine development and delivery of the lay language trial results summary. The results of this assessment show that study volunteers and investigative site staff are extremely receptive to receiving clinical trial results and that the process of preparing and disseminating clinical trial results is feasible and generally easy to execute. The results also indicate that study volunteer comprehension of basic facts about their clinical trial pre- and post-test increased by as much as 65.6 percentage points, and suggest that this communication initiative may positively impact volunteer recruitment, retention and long-term trust in the clinical research enterprise.