My Lords, the point of Amendment 63, which is in my name, is the need for the HRA to emphasise transparency in the reporting of clinical trials because patients and the public must have confidence that research in which they have been involved will be used in the best way to spread the message for the good of other sufferers. They have to know that results, whether negative or positive, are published. As my noble friend Lord Warner has said, it is particularly important if they are negative, for at least two reasons. First, it is to stop the unnecessary, wasteful repetition of the research by others who are unaware that it has already been done. Equally important is to prevent a bias in reports towards research that shows only that a new drug works when other, unpublished, research shows that it does not. This is particularly important when we consider what is called meta-analysis, whereby an analysis is made of all relevant published reports, brought together to provide a large database on whether a drug works or does not. If only the positive results are reported, we have a biased result at the end, which could result in all sorts of problems.
Open access to research data provides researchers with a much better picture of their field than if research results are held too closely to the chest, perhaps by researchers jealous of their findings or by drug companies fearful of rivals gaining an advantage. It is heartening to know that GSK seems to have learnt the lesson: it is the first pharmaceutical company to lead the way in transparency. Members of the Association of Medical Research Charities make it a condition of their grants that results are published. We are pushing on an open door and we just need the HRA to have some capacity to ensure transparency in NHS research.