Universities lack of transparency on clinical trials ‘deeply disappointing’
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The Chair of the Science and Technology Select Committee, Norman
Lamb MP, has written to over forty UK universities to ensure they
are complying with clinical trials transparency requirements.
The letters have been written following the Committee’s
recent Report on clinical trials transparency, which
highlighted that many universities appear to have a poor track
record in this area. The Committee noted in the Report that
falling short on ‘clinical...Request free trial
The Chair of the Science and Technology Select Committee, Norman Lamb MP, has written to over forty UK
universities to ensure they are complying with clinical trials
transparency requirements.
The letters have been written following the Committee’s recent Report on clinical trials transparency, which highlighted that many universities appear to have a poor track record in this area.
The Committee noted in the Report that falling short on ‘clinical trials transparency’ through failing to publish clinical trials results “presents risks to human health, contributes to research wastage and means that clinical decisions are made without access to all the available evidence”.
These institutions have been asked to verify that systems are being put in place to ensure that they adhere to current transparency rules and legislation going forward. Most of the institutions the Chair has written to have overdue trials. Others will have trials that will be due soon.
The Committee intends to revisit this issue later this year and may choose to question institutions that have not improved their compliance by that point.
Rt Hon Norman Lamb MP, Chair of the Science and Technology Committee, said:
“The Committee applauds the universities that have reacted quickly to the clinical trials transparency problems we identified in October.
“However, it’s deeply disappointing that on the face of it most have failed to respond to the challenge so far. Universities and other trial leaders need to act on this as a matter of urgency.
“Our Committee will be returning to this issue with a follow-up evidence session, so I’m putting all universities on notice that they will be asked to come before us to explain themselves if they haven’t got their house in order by then.”
See sample letter text below:
In October 2018, the Science and Technology Committee’s Report on clinical trials transparency highlighted that the results of clinical trials are not being reported in many cases, and that a number of universities appear to have a poor track record in complying with transparency rules and legislation in this area.
I am writing to ask you to verify that systems are being put in place at your institution to ensure that you comply fully with clinical trials transparency requirements. I would also like to alert you to the fact that the Committee intends to revisit this issue after the summer recess, and may wish to question institutions that have not improved their compliance by that point. Similarly, we may also be interested in hearing from those universities who have made significant progress in correcting this problem so that they can share good practice in this area with others.
There are two specific sets of rules that I would like to draw your attention to:
Recent work by Dr Ben Goldacre and colleagues at the EBMDataLab (part of the AllTrials campaign) provides a means of tracking each institution’s compliance with these requirements. The data from the EU Trials Tracker website relating to your institution (as of January 2019) are as follows:
Details of your EUCTR compliance are available from [URL]
The Committee will contact you over the summer if the data at that point suggest that there is a concern about compliance with reporting requirements.
In the meantime, the AllTrials Campaign (www.alltrials.net) would be pleased to advise you on the steps needed to make progress in this area over the coming months.
Recipients:
Find out more about individual trials here. |