Clinical Trial Transparency: the state of the art

“Disclosure is a global phenomenon, that does not recognise the geopolitical borders: for this reason, we have to look at it in a global perspective”.

Merete Jorgensenn, Senior Clinical Disclosure Director at Novo Nordisk and Program Committee Member of the Global Clinical Trials Transparency Conference, summarises in a sentence two critical features of the clinical trial transparency: its planetary pervasiveness and, as an inevitable consequence, its need to adopt standard criteria.

The conference, organised by the Drug Information Association in London on 19 and 20 September, has offered more than 100 participants from about 20 different countries the opportunity to deepen the debate, now more than ten years, on the clinical trials transparency and its implications.

Thanks to the policies adopted by the FDA, EMA and Health Canada, in recent years the transparency of clinical studies has become increasingly crucial for all health workers: patients, doctors, researchers, pharmaceutical companies, research centres and regulatory agencies. “Much has been done – stressed Francine Lane, V.P. Global Transparency at TrialScope and head of the DIA Disclosure Community – but the transparency of clinical trials is a process that has not been completed yet”.