Major UK non-commercial sponsors’ efforts to reduce research waste: a mixed-methods study

Worldwide, a significant proportion of clinical trials end up as costly research waste because their results are never made public.1–3 The resulting gaps in the medical evidence base harm patients and undermine public health.4 The Declaration of Helsinki and the WHO both call for all clinical trial results to be made public.5 6 In the wake of a 2018 UK parliamentary enquiry, non-commercial clinical trial sponsors in the UK substantially improved outcome reporting for drug trials (Clinical Trials of Investigative Medicinal Products, CTIMPs) by uploading the summary results of many CTIMPs onto the European Union Clinical Trials Register (EUCTR) which exclusively lists drug trials. However, these efforts typically did not extend to other types of trials, which are listed on other trial registries. This study assesses the current publication status of 145 clinical trials that are not CTIMPs that were sponsored by ten major UK non-commercial sponsors and were completed or terminated in 2017, allowing a 5-year follow-up period for publication. The lead researcher (TB) identified the 10 most prolific non-commercial sponsors of clinical trials in the UK by accessing the EU Trials Tracker on 27 October 2022, employing the …