STAT analyzed approximately 18,700 clinical trials whose results should have been posted to ClinicalTrials.gov between 2008 and Sept. 11, 2017, as mandated by a 10-year-old federal law. The analysis follows a STAT report published in 2015, which found several prestigious medical research institutions were among the most severe violators of the federal reporting law.
Here are four findings from the analysis.
1. Major research universities, which conduct the vast majority of academic trials, increased from reporting 58 percent of clinical trial results in September 2015 to 77 percent in September 2017.
2. Many of the research institutions that improved the most in reporting clinical trial results had been identified as poor reporters in the earlier STAT investigation. These institutions included New York City-based Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, the University of Pittsburgh and Stanford (Calif.) University. These institutions improved from reporting the results of 35 percent of studies to 76 percent on average.
3. However, STAT found four out of every 10 trials were reported after the legal deadline, which is one year after a trial’s completion or termination.
4. The analysis found Laval, Canada-based Valeant Pharmaceuticals, Bronx, N.Y.-based Albert Einstein School of Medicine, the University of Nebraska in Lincoln and UC Irvine continued to violate the law. Each of these institutions failed to report even 20 percent of its trials within the legal deadlines.
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