Pharma’s still learning how to share when it comes to drug data

Most of the world’s largest drug companies are doing a poor job of sharing detailed study data after medicines are approved, according to a new analysis published in BMJ.

As STAT’s Ed Silverman reports, only four of the 12 biggest companies had published clinical results on medicines approved back in 2015. Just three of them did so in what the researchers determined to be a reasonable amount of time.

The majority of companies had policies that would allow for sharing, but most of those promises came without guarantees to provide the data in a timely fashion.

“It’s not just about preventing disasters,” said Jennifer Miller, the lead study author, who heads Bioethics International, a nonprofit, and is an assistant professor at the Yale School of Medicine. “We need to be able to reanalyze a drug to see if it’s safe and effective as originally thought.”

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