Roche to make clinical trial data more accessible

Roche has announced a new process for making its clinical trial data more transparent.

Roche has pledged to improve access to its clinical trial data for third parties.

The pharmaceutical firm said it will use an independent panel of "recognised experts" to deal with research requests for anonymised patient-level data that is not published voluntarily. It will also support the release of full clinical study reports for all its licensed medicines.

"We understand and support calls for our industry to be more transparent about clinical trial data with the aim of meeting the best interests of patients and medicine," said Daniel O'Day, chief operating officer of Roche Pharma.

The company's announcement comes amid an ongoing campaign for greater transparency from drug manufacturers. Pharmaceutical firms have been criticised for failing to provide access to all the data they hold on certain medicines, as well as not publishing the results of trials that have a negative outcome.

Mr O'Day added that Roche believes that "health authorities need to remain the gatekeeper for drug assessment and approval".

GlaxoSmithKline has already pledged its support for the AllTrials campaign, which wants the results of all clinical studies to be made public.