The health care giant Johnson & Johnson has agreed to make detailed clinical trial data on its medical devices and diagnostic tests available to outside researchers through a collaboration with Yale University, making it the first large device manufacturer to systematically make such data public.
The announcement came on the same day that the Institute of Medicine, of the National Academy of Sciences, called on all sponsors of clinical trials to share detailed study data with outside researchers and recommended that such data be made available within 30 days of a product’s approval.
The dual developments are part of a broader shift toward making clinical trial data more publicly available and follows years in which the industry resisted calls to share its research with outsiders, claiming such moves would expose trade secrets and violate patient privacy.
Medtronic, another large device maker, had previously allowed Yale to evaluate data on a controversial spinal treatment, but the agreement withJohnson & Johnson is the first time a device manufacturer has made data available in a systematic way.
