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Member Research & Reports

Member Research & Reports

Harvard Report Offers Recommendations for Expanding Access to Clinical Trial Data Responsibly

A new report by researchers from Harvard University and others in a working group convened by the Multi-Regional Clinical Trials Center (MRCT) at Harvard proposes recommendations for addressing a problem that has vexed drug regulators: how to expand public access to data from clinical trials while protecting patients’ privacy and weighing pharmaceutical companies’ business interests. Recently, the European Medicines Agency (EMA) announced it will provide public access to participant-level data submitted in applications for marketing approval in Europe, prompting questions about whether the U.S. Food and Drug Administration should follow suit. Data released by the EMA have spurred litigation by drug companies and heated debate about whether clinical trial data should be protected as proprietary information or widely shared.