Industry Urged To Reveal Unpublished Trials

The pharmaceutical industry has been urged to respond to the MedicalEditors' Trial Amnesty for unpublished clinical trials, which is due to be held by a number of major medical journals in the third quarter of the year.

Companies should take this opportunity to present such unpublished data, said Iain Chalmers, director of the UK Cochrane Centre. Moreover, they should follow the "excellent example" set by Schering Health Care, which has registered basic details of all its unpublished and ongoing Phase III trials in the UK for dissemination through the Cochrane Controlled Trials Register, he told a meeting in London last week, organized by the Society of Pharmaceutical Medicine to discuss evidence-based medicine.

Dr Chalmers warned the industry that if it does not take the lead in this matter it will be led, as patients become more and more informed and involved.