AllTrials campaign gets big boost as pharm investors call for transparency

[Sasha]

Just got this email today from AllTrials:

Dear AllTrials friend

We have big news to announce: investors in pharmaceutical companies who together represent over €3.5 trillion in investment assets today support AllTrials.

This group of 85 pension funds and asset managers are now to writing to the companies they invest in to ask them to set out plans to ensure their clinical trials, past, present and future, are registered and results reported.

Ben Goldacre described today’s investor action as game changing. For those who thought they could ignore AllTrials, those who thought they could ignore public calls for transparency, and those who thought no one was checking their compliance with the rules, it sends a clear message: Wake up!

AllTrials worked with BNP Paribas Investment Partners to run workshops with investors to develop the steps they are calling on companies to take. Read those steps here.

Helena Vines Fiestas from BNP Paribas Investment Partners explains why investors want transparency: “Alongside doctors and their patients, investors also risk being misled ... it is essential that companies publish complete and accurate information on trial results so that investment decisions can be fully informed.”

That is why investors including Aviva Investors, Boston Commons Asset Management, RobecoSAM, 65 UK local authority pension funds and the investment arm of the Wellcome Trust are today writing to pharma companies asking them to be more transparent.

Read more about this in today’s Financial Times, the Economist tomorrow and at alltrials.net and please share this news far and wide.

Best wishes
James and Síle


Join the AllTrials campaign here http://www.alltrials.net/get- involved/ and donate to the campaign here https://www.justgiving.com/ alltrials

 

[Bob]

This thread seems to be a good place to post this new article by Ben Goldacre, which came to my attention via Linda Vansteenwinckel on Twitter.


Scientists Are Hoarding Data And It’s Ruining Medical Research
Major flaws in two massive trials of deworming pills show the importance of sharing data — which most scientists don’t do.
Ben Goldacre
July 23, 2015
BuzzFeed
http://www.buzzfeed.com/bengoldacre/deworming-trials

"Conducting a trial, and then refusing to let anyone see the data, is like claiming you’ve flown a spaceship to Pluto, but refusing to let anyone see the photos."

 

[Scarecrow]

Funnily enough, I was thinking to myself that's a bit ironic when I read that the call for transparency was coming from pension fund and asset managers.

Then I read this bit:

Helena Vines Fiestas from BNP Paribas Investment Partners explains why investors want transparency: “Alongside doctors and their patients, investors also risk being misled ... it is essential that companies publish complete and accurate information on trial results so that investment decisions can be fully informed.”

It is a valid point but it does smack of self-interest.

Signed: a financial services industry worker

 

[Sasha]

It is a valid point but it does smack of self-interest.

Interestingly enough, someone made that exact same point in the comments on Brian Vastag's article in the Washington Post - that PWME asking for more research money smacked of self-interest.

I think the thing in both cases is that the self-interest is justified: and it's not limited to one's own self but to others in the same position with the same legitimate interest.

So if we get $250m from the NIH, no single one of us will be hogging the research findings to him/herself for his/her own personal use.

 

[Scarecrow]

Yes the self interest is justified but speaking as an insider I'd like to see them clean their own act up too.

 

[Sasha]

Yes the self interest is justified but speaking as an insider I'd like to see them clean their own act up too.