At this year’s World Health Summit in Berlin, a beta version of OpenTrials, an online database containing information on clinical trials from across the world, was officially launched. The project, which is being built by Open Knowledge International, funded by the Laura and John Arnold Foundation and directed by data transparency advocate Dr. Ben Goldacre, aims to improve access to research and increase transparency of clinical trials.

Until now, information on trials has been available from various registries, such as ClinicalTrials.gov, EU Clinical Trials Register, Health Research Authority and WHO International Trials Registry platform. OpenTrials extracts information from these sources (and others) and brings all documents and data for each clinical trial together, providing a one-stop platform for searching and displaying such information. Plans to increase the number of sources are underway to ensure that all available information for a given trial is readily accessible.

Dr Goldacre explains “The end product will provide valuable information for patients, doctors, researchers, and policymakers—not just on individual trials, but also on how whole sectors, researchers, companies, and funders are performing.” The first phase of the OpenTrials project is scheduled for completion in March 2017.

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Summary by Alice Wareham, PhD from Aspire Scientific