Improving Transparency of Clinical Trial Data

Chairs: M Weiser, A Kalali

Progress in developing drugs is often plagued by publication bias of several sorts, including non-publication of negative studies. Non-publication is damaging for the field, as compounds which have already been tested with no results published might be tested again, leading to unnecessary exposure of patients to study procedures/placebo and to a waste of funds that might otherwise be used to test innovative compounds. Additionally, investigators sometimes report the results of studies improperly, neglecting to differentiate between primary and secondary outcome measures, and/or presenting post hoc and sub-group analyses as primary outcomes. This symposium will present an overview of this issue, and show rates of publications of studies of some of the major agencies which fund trials in psychiatry.