As part of an effort to bolster reporting of clinical trial results, European officials are reminding investigators of reporting requirements and a new trial registry is to debut early next year in Europe, Science reports.
It adds that European rules require trial sponsors to post their results within a year of the trial's end, but that more than a quarter of completed trials in the EU Clinical Trials Register have yet to disclose their results. Public research universities and hospitals are the main violators, Science notes, adding that the Public Assistance Hospitals of Paris has reported results for one of the 35 trials it completed more than a year ago.
"It is scandalous not to disclose the data, however disappointing, to the patient participants, to taxpayers in the case of public funding, and to everyone else involved," Florian Naudet from the University of Rennes hospital tells Science.
According to Science, when the European Medicines Agency's Clinical Trials Information System goes live in January — it will replace the EU Clinical Trials Register over a three-year period — a 2014 EU regulation will go into effect that will enable national regulators in Europe to enforce reporting requirements more strongly by imposing penalties.