Greater transparency needed in publishing information from clinical trials

An initiative from the drugs regulator the European Medicines Agency to commit to releasing all of the information from clinical trials once the marketing authorization process has ended, which has been greeted with cautious optimism by proponents of access to data but with much less enthusiasm by the pharmaceutical industry, sparks an interesting debate on the role of medical journals in publishing drug data, according to the editors of Public Library of Science’s PLoS Medicine.

Writing in an Editorial, the editors state: "As 2013 begins, it is clear that critical times lie ahead for the publishing of clinical trials, which may define the relationship between pharmaceutical companies and the public for many years to come."

The Editors argue: "It is no longer going to be the case, if it ever was, that a trial report published in a journal will be sufficient as the record of a trial - and if journals are not careful, such reports will become unnecessary as well.