New automated clinical trials tracker shows around half of all trials have not published results, shines a spotlight on the worst companies and universities.
Nearly half of trials run by major trial sponsors in the last decade are missing results according to a new automated clinical trials tracker launched today. The TrialsTracker* identifies trials on the world’s largest clinical trial register, ClinicalTrials.gov, that haven’t published results two years after the end of the trial. The TrialsTracker shows that:
- 45.2% of trials conducted by major sponsors during the last decade are missing results.
- Since January 2006, major trial sponsors completed 25,927 eligible trials and haven’t published results for 11,714 of them.
- One trial sponsor has published no results at all for any of the 35 trials it has run in the last 10 years: Ranbaxy Laboratories Limited, a multinational pharmaceutical company with headquarters in India.
- One trial sponsor has published results for all of the 96 trials it has run in the last 10 years: Shire, a multinational pharmaceutical company headquartered in Ireland.
- The top twenty trial sponsors as ranked by the tracker – those with the lowest proportion of trials that haven’t published results – are all pharmaceutical companies.
(The TrialsTracker is automatically updated when new information is added to the clinical trial register ClinicalTrials.gov. The information above was correct as of 2nd November 2016.)
The TrialsTracker was developed by academics at the University of Oxford. These researchers have estimated that 8.7 million patients were enrolled in the 11,714 trials identified by the tracker as missing results. More detail on the development of the Trials Tracker tool and its background are available in a paper “The TrialsTracker: automated ongoing monitoring of failure to share clinical trial results by all major companies and research institutions” by Anna Powell-Smith and Ben Goldacre published today in F1000Research.
The AllTrials campaign for clinical trial transparency has been calling for the results of all clinical trials to be published, before they are lost forever. Síle Lane, director of campaigns at Sense about Science which runs the AllTrials campaign, said:
We should all be outraged that in the last 10 years 8.7 million patients have taken part in trials that haven’t published results. These people volunteered for a clinical trial trusting that whatever was found out in the trial would be shared with doctors and researchers and used to make life better for patients like them. When results from trials are never shared and never used, that’s an enormous betrayal of their trust.
I hope this new tracker will focus trial sponsors’ minds on the information they haven’t shared. The situation is urgent. When researchers retire, when computers break, when notebooks get lost we lose more knowledge about our medicines. Every day that passes means more information is lost forever. Trial funders need to ensure that missing results are shared, now, before it’s too late.
Dr Ben Goldacre, one of the founders of the AllTrials campaign for clinical trial transparency and one of the academics behind the TrialsTracker said:
Everyone has been talking about this problem for far too long. We hope that increasing accountability will help to drive change forward. The TrialsTracker helps to identify the individual universities and companies with the most overdue trials. If any institution is concerned that it is doing badly in our league tables, then there is one simple thing they can do: publish their trial results, using their trial registry number, so that this information can be accessed and read by doctors, researchers, and patients.
April Clyburne Sherin, AllTrials US manager, Sense About Science USA, said:
TrialsTracker is a tool that helps align the values of responsible research groups with their actions. It empowers them to assess gaps in discoverability and take the concrete steps required for transparency; this will ultimately improve the reporting quality and impact of their research.
The following tables show the best and worst performing major clinical trial sponsors, according to the TrialTracker:
Top five sponsors with highest number of missing results.
| Name of trial sponsor | Trials missing results | Total eligible trials | Percent missing |
| Sanofi | 285 | 435 | 65.5% |
| Novartis Pharmaceuticals | 201 | 534 | 37.6% |
| National Cancer Institute (NCI) | 194 | 558 | 34.8% |
| Assistance Publique – Hôpitaux de Paris | 186 | 292 | 63.7% |
| GlaxoSmithKline | 183 | 809 | 22.6% |
Top five sponsors with lowest number of missing results.
| Name of trial sponsor | Trials missing results | Total eligible trials | Percent missing |
| Shire | 0 | 96 | 0% |
| Colgate Palmolive | 1 | 32 | 3.1% |
| Johnson & Jphnson Pharmaceutical Research & Development, L.L.C. | 3 | 58 | 5.2% |
| Jassen Research & Development, LLC | 3 | 35 | 8.6% |
| Genentech, Inc. | 4 | 70 | 5.7% |
Top five sponsors with greatest proportion of missing trials.
| Name of trial sponsor | Trials missing results | Total eligible trials | Percent missing |
| Ranbaxy Laboratories Limited | 35 | 35 | 100.0% |
| Nanjing Medical University | 32 | 35 | 91.4% |
| Rambam Health Care Campus | 27 | 30 | 90.0% |
| Isfahan University of Medical Sciences | 44 | 49 | 89.8% |
| City of Hope Medical Center | 39 | 44 | 88.6% |
Top five sponsors with lowest proportion of missing trials.
| Name of trial sponsor | Trials missing results | Total eligible trials | Percent missing |
| Shire | 0 | 96 | 0 % |
| Colgate Palmolive | 1 | 32 | 3.1% |
| Bristol-Myers Squibb | 5 | 115 | 4.3% |
| Eli Lilly and Company | 15 | 292 | 5.1% |
| Johnson & Johnson Pharmaceutical Research & Development, L.L.C. | 3 | 58 | 5.2% |
(The TrialsTracker is automatically updated when new information is added to the clinical trial register ClinicalTrials.gov. The information above was correct as of 2nd November 2016.)