Wikimedia, BmramonIn an about-face on the issue of candor, the pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) will systematically begin making its vast archives of clinical trial data available to researchers, the company announced last week (October 11). But the data won’t be completely accessible: GSK will still control access by assembling a panel, charged with reviewing and granting requests to view the data, to “ensure that this information will be used for valid scientific endeavor.”
In the announcement, the company—which once sided with the rest of the pharmaceutical sector by keeping all such unpublished data under lock and key —explained the philosophical flip by stating that a data release will “enable additional scientific inquiry and analyses to further scientific knowledge and help bring benefit to patients.” The decision comes in the wake of several trial-related scandals by big pharmaceutical companies over the past decade, including one earlier this year in which GSK paid a whopping $3 billion settlement to US authorities for—in part—obfuscating clinical trial results.
The new access has some GSK researchers and academic scientists hopeful of greater transparency and collaboration in the future. “The move by GSK is a great public step forward,” medical professor Joseph Ross of ...
