The Council of the International Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers & Associations (IFPMA) has approved an updated Joint Position on the Disclosure of Clinical Trial Information via Clinical Trial Registries and Databases. This extends the range of trials that member companies must provide information about to include all confirmatory and exploratory efficacy clinical trials. This is a minimum standard: the new Position explicitly leaves companies free to disclose phase 1 trials at their discretion, for instance, in patients for oncology and other serious life-threatening conditions.
The new Position enters force with immediate effect, having been already approved by other participating pharmaceutical associations - the European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations (EFPIA), the Japanese Pharmaceutical Manufacturers' Association (JPMA) and the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA). It replaces the previous ones, dated September and January 2005.
The IFPMA Clinical Trials Portal (www.ifpma.org/clinicaltrials) was launched in September 2005 to facilitate patients' and health professionals' access to clinical trials registry details and summary results of completed trials. The Portal has been subsequently refined to improve its performance and ease of use. It now provides interfaces in French, German, Japanese and Spanish, and allows users to request e-mail alerts when new trials are posted which correspond to user-defined criteria.
