In its role as secretariat for clinicalstudydatarequest.com, the Wellcome Trust has appointed a new independent review panel to evaluate requests from researchers who want to access data from industry-sponsored clinical trials. The new arrangements reinforce the independence of both the panel and review process from the pharmaceutical companies that provide anonymised patient data from their clinical trials.
The first version of the website clinicalstudydatarequest.com was set up in May 2013 by the pharmaceutical company GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) to allow researchers to request clinical trial data to conduct further research. In the two years since the website was launched 13 pharmaceutical companies have joined GSK and made their clinical trial data available to researchers on request. In February 2015 the Wellcome Trust took on the role of secretariat for the independent review panel.
The aims of providing a widely accessible portal to request data are to maximise the research value of the data and to provide a single point of access to clinical data generated by multiple industrial sponsors.
Clinical studies listed on the website include trials concerning a wide range of disease areas including cancer, infectious disease and cardiovascular disease. There are now more than 2800 studies listed on the website and 179 research proposals have been submitted to date.
The new independent review panel consists of five members and is chaired by Professor Jeffrey P Koplan, President for Global Health at Emory University. The panel's role is to undertake a high level review of the scientific rationale of data requests and to ensure the robustness of the research proposals.
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