Eisai Co., Ltd, a Japanese pharmaceutical company, has announced it is making some of its clinical trial data available to researchers through the external website www.clinicalstudydatarequest.com.

Eisai has said it will share clinical trial data only from trials of products approved after 1st January 2014, in Europe and the United States. This is the level of transparency that guidelines from industry bodies EFPIA and PhRMA recommend. Now, 12 pharmaceutical companies have agreed to share data through CSDR.com, the portal established by GSK in 2013. When researchers submit a data request through the website, the request will be reviewed by an independent review panel. If the request for data is approved, Eisai will then give researchers access to the anonymised patient data.

James Cockerill, Campaigns Manager, Sense about Science said:

Whilst this is a positive move by Eisai Co, and it’s great to see more of industry thinking about how they can share clinical trial data with researchers, this move does nothing to uncover unregistered and unreported clinical trials which still remain hidden. We need to see ALL trials, past and present, registered and reported, not just for those products that have been submitted and approved, and not just for those trials that happened recently. This is the only way we can maximise benefits for patients.