Dashboard highlights unpublished clinical trials

Small improvement seen over time, as organisers highlight researchers’ obligations to patients

The results of publicly funded clinical trials in Germany are slow to be made public, with many languishing unpublished for at least five years, a study has shown.

An analysis by the Quest Center for Responsible Research at the Berlin Institute of Health has concluded that just 41 per cent of clinical trials that receive taxpayer funding had been published within two years of completion. This went up to 74 per cent of trials five years after completion—leaving one in four still unpublished.