Open access publisher BioMed Central, UK, has announced that an article for Pharmaphorum, a news and community site for pharma research, looks at the opportunities for clinical trial development and dissemination offered by open access publishing.
The article discusses the steps taken by BioMed's trial register database and open access journals, including the dedicated clinical trial journal Trials, to improve transparency and reporting in clinical trials. Launched in 2006, Trials has published almost 900 study protocols, results, methodologies and editorials covering a broad scope of clinical trials. According to BioMed,
the journal has been tackling gaps in trial reporting with innovative solutions, such as the Update article, designed to provide a citable method of informing readers of changes to a protocol, newly elucidated data or further conclusions arising from new analysis of reported results.
BioMed also runs Current Controlled Trials (CCT) on behalf of the ISRCTN trial register. With over 10,000 registered trials, the register now seeks to keep clinical trials transparent and ethical, it also expects to offer information on how, where and why trials are run across the globe. Recently, CCT launched a new statistics page showcasing some of the data that can be used from the register to highlight trends in trial registration.
Other developments touched upon in the article include the availability of data, the publishing of negative results and stopped trials, and the challenges remaining in open access publishing of clinical trials.
