Reliable assessment of drugs is only possible on the basis of clinical study reports, says IQWiG

In 2012, researchers from the German Institute for Quality and Efficiency in Health Care (IQWiG) presented a study in the BMJ analysing information sources used in 16 health technology assessment (HTA) reports of drugs (benefit assessments), which demonstrated that publicly-available sources, such as scientific journals and entries posted in trial registries (“registry reports”), contained far less information on methods and outcomes of clinical trials than non-public CSRs prepared by pharmaceutical companies.

In a second article published this week in PLOS Medicine, the IQWiG researchers now show that if, instead of only assessing selected outcomes as in the first study, all patient-relevant outcomes of the clinical trials are assessed, the information deficit in the publicly available sources is even greater.

Huge difference in the information provided