Janssen announces clinical trial data sharing agreement

Janssen will be making its clinical trial data more widely available to scientists and researchers through a new partnership with Yale School of Medicine.

The agreement will see Yale's Open Data Access Project serve as an independent body to review requests from investigators and physicians seeking access to anonymised clinical trials data from Janssen, before taking final decisions on data sharing.

It will be the first time any company has collaborated with a completely independent third party to review and make decisions regarding all requests for clinical data, and comes in response to industry-wide calls to make medical research findings more openly accessible.

Janssen is part of the Johnson and Johnson group, which has pledged to share data from clinical trials spanning its full range of medical devices and consumer products.

Dr Bill Hait, global head of Janssen Research and Development, said: "We will now be able to share data from our clinical trials … in a systematic and objective way that advances medicine and scientific knowledge while protecting patient privacy and confidentiality."

This comes after the company announced the launch of a global public health division focusing on the development of new medicines to address unmet healthcare needs worldwide.