STAT Plus: Many pivotal drug studies don’t include data on race or ethnicity, analysis finds
Amid concerns that clinical trials do not adequately represent patient populations, a new analysis finds a substantial portion of so-called pivotal studies failed to break out data on the race and ethnicity of participants. And at the same time, fewer women participated in trials than might have been expected.
Over a recent 10-year period, only 37% of 775 pivotal trials – which are the late-stage studies used to win regulatory approvals – provided data on ethnicity. And only 73% of the studies broke out participation by race. However, trial sponsors did a better job of disclosing the sex and age of participants – 90% and 83%, respectively.
