The shift towards greater transparency of clinical trial data has gathered momentum over the past year, with GlaxoSmithKline ($GSK) committing to share all results since 2000 and Europe considering legislation. Now, Pfizer ($PFE) has outlined its plans to give patients access to their own study data.
Patients who have participated in Pfizer clinical trials will be able to download their data using the "Blue Button" standard introduced by the White House. The White House created the button in 2010 to help patients download their personal health records, and the U.S. Veterans Administration added the feature to its site later that year. While the approach has clear potential as a way to share data with trial participants, no biopharma companies have adopted the button--until now.
"Using the Blue Button, patients will be empowered to use the data to improve their overall health and wellness, from sharing with healthcare providers to powering clinical risk assessments," Pfizer wrote in its summary of the initiative. Pharmafile, which first reported the Pfizer initiative, writes that 90% of patients with access to personally controlled health records are open to sharing the data to further research.
Pfizer presented the initiative at the Disruptive Innovations conference in Boston. In its brief history, Disruptive Innovations has already provided a first look at several novel Big Pharma initiatives. Last year, Eli Lilly ($LLY), Johnson & Johnson ($JNJ) and Merck ($MRK) used the event to unveil their precompetitive investigator databank project. The initiative--which saw the companies share details of clinical trial sites--later became of an initial area of focus for Big Pharma consortium TransCelerate BioPharma.
- read the Pharmafile article
- check out Pfizer's summary