Boehringer Ingelheim announces clinical data transparency measures

Boehringer Ingelheim is to make detailed clinical trial data available to the scientific community through a number of changes to its access policies.

Under the new measures, researchers will be able to view anonymised patient-level data from studies dating back to 1998, while the company will also publish scientific results from all sponsored studies in peer-reviewed journals and scientific meetings.

It has also pledged to register protocol information for all types of clinical studies on www.ClinicalTrials.gov, including early-stage trials, studies of products approved outside the US and programmes that met with negative outcomes.

Scientists can visit the organisation's corporate website to request access to the various data releases.

Dr Christopher Corsico, global head of clinical development for medicine and regulatory affairs at Boehringer Ingelheim, said: "The free exchange of scientific information is the basis for innovation in medicine … Going beyond applicable regulatory and legal requirements, we at Boehringer Ingelheim feel it is the right approach and hope it will benefit science."

The firm is currently working on 90 research and development projects and expects to launch more than ten new products, spanning eight indications, in the next two years alone.