TrialsTracker Project Wins Cochrane-REWARD Prize for Reducing Research Waste

Our FDAAA TrialsTracker has been updating each working day since February showing which trials on ClinicalTrials.gov have reported, in compliance with the FDA Amendments Act of 2007. Our newly launched EU TrialsTracker and paper in the BMJ show exactly which trials on the EUCTR have reported according to EU guidelines.

This week we’re delighted to tell you that our TrialsTracker work has been awarded a Cochrane-REWARD Prize for Reducing Research Waste. We’re honored to share the 2nd prize with the wonderful James Lind Alliance; and further humbled to finish behind the mighty EQUATOR Network, who took a well-deserved 1st prize for their continued work on improving the quality of trial reporting.

We are particularly grateful for this prize because it brings kudos. Our kind of work - documenting where trials have been left unreported - can sometimes be viewed as transgressive. In our view, the opposite is true: the researchers and sponsors who fail to share the results of their clinical trials are subverting the principles of evidence-based medicine. Researchers must keep their promises to patients, funders, and regulators. We hope that our audit tools will help universities and drug companies to achieve 100% compliance with their ethical and legal obligations to report their clinical trials.