OnCo
ideasIdea

Actually fine sponsors who do not post trial results

US law already requires trial results to be posted within a year and allows fines of over ten thousand dollars a day. Almost no fines have ever been issued. Start issuing them.

FDAAA 801 requires results posting on ClinicalTrials.gov within twelve months of primary completion for applicable trials; compliance has hovered around 40 to 70% depending on sponsor type. Enforcement has been minimal. A published enforcement policy with automatic notices, escalating penalties and public listing of non-compliant sponsors, plus an equivalent under the EU Clinical Trials Regulation, would raise compliance.

Hypothesis
Systematic enforcement raises on-time results posting for oncology trials above 90% within two years, as measured by the TrialsTracker methodology.
Rationale
When the EU Clinical Trials Register began publicly listing non-compliance and universities faced reputational pressure, UK university compliance rose from under 50% to over 90% in about two years.
What would test it
Implement and publish the enforcement policy; track monthly compliance rates against the pre-policy baseline.
Maturity
early clinical
Who has to act
regulator
Cost to try
Small (under $1M)
Years to first evidence
1
Bottlenecks it attacks
  • Failures are hidden · Negative trials, failed drugs and abandoned programmes are rarely published, so the same mistakes are repeated.

Connected

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