Sanofi and Novartis AG are the Worst Culprits in Reporting Clinical Trial Data, Shire the Best

Sanofi and Novartis AG are the Worst Culprits in Reporting Clinical Trial Data, Shire the Best November 4, 2016
By Alex Keown, BioSpace.com Breaking News Staff

OXFORD, England – For the second year in a row, Sanofi has been highlighted by a transparency organization as one of the least transparent companies when it comes to clinical trial data.

The Trialstracker system points at Sanofi and Novartis Pharmaceuticals as being the most secretive among Big Pharma, universities and government bodies when it comes to sharing clinical trial results. Other companies in the top 10 of the Trialstracker system include GlaxoSmithKline in the number five spot. The remaining organizations in the top 10 are universities and government agencies.

The Oxford program downloaded information from Clinicaltrials.gov for the period of 2006 to 2014. The group excluded Phase 0/I trials, as well as those that filed formal requests to delay results. They also limited the size of the investigation to companies and organizations that have conducted more than 30 trials during that period. If the organizations failed to “post summary results, or to ensure the trial ID is in their PubMed entry, then their results will be listed here as missing,” the Trialstracker folks said on their website.

According to the system, Sanofi did not report 65.5 percent of its data out of 435 trials since 2006, the first year Trialstracker began gathering data. That means the company did not report on 285 trials. Novartis failed to report 37.6 percent of its trial data, which translates into missing information from 201 out of 534 trials over the same period.

GSK, which has in the past championed clinical trials transparency, was tagged at failing to report 22.6 percent of trials it sponsored—183 missing out of 809.

Last year Bioethics International, another clinical trials transparency organization, tagged Sanofi and Gilead Sciences as the two worst offenders. Thomas Wicks, chief strategy officer of transparency advocated Trialscopes, told BioSpace that it was important for all trial information to be made public in order to prevent putting patients at risk.

Since January of 2006, there have been 25,927 completed clinical trials, but results have not been published for 11,714 trials. Trialstracker said that translates into 45.2 percent of missing trial data.

While Sanofi and Novartis were tagged as among the worst offenders, the Trialstracker system highlighted Shire as the most transparent company, reporting 100 percent of its trial data. Johnson & Johnson ’s pharmaceutical division, which has been one of the companies pledging to be transparent, failed to report three of 58 trials, according to the system. Genentech , Bristol-Myers Squibb and AbbVie were also hailed as among the most transparent.

“Clinical trials are the best way we have of testing whether a medicine is safe and effective. They can involve thousands of people, patients and healthy volunteers, and take years to complete. But trials with negative results are twice as likely to remain unreported as those with positive results. This means that patients and doctors don't have the full information about the benefits and risks of treatments. We believe all clinical trials, past and present, should be reported in full,” the Trialstracker website says.

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