Open Science to Address COVID-19: Sharing Data to Make Our Research Investment Go Further | SpringerLink

"Over 1000 randomized clinical trials (RCTs) for the treatment and prevention of COVID-19 have been initiated. With access to the data from RCTs, researchers can integrate and summarize findings, evaluate new hypotheses, design future trials, and prioritize the next research questions to be addressed. This ensures that the value from the investment in the RCTs goes beyond the original intent of the trial protocols. None of this is possible without first having easy and responsible systems to allow access to data: the primary tenets of the open science FAIR principles dictate a proactive intent to share results and patient data from clinical trials [Wilkinson]. While much has been written and progress has been made, there is more to be done in this journey to true openness [Rockhold]. Reasons for this include (1) the well-known complexities of data access (patient privacy, content of the trial’s informed consent and the primary data holder’s decision rights as to sharing), (2) concerns about mis-interpretation of data in the context of secondary research (beyond the original intent of the trial), and (3) the use of platform trials where multiple intervention arms are studied relative to a single control arm.

The International COVID-19 Data Alliance (ICODA) is one of the groups initiating concerted data sharing as a powerful mechanism to address COVID-19. We focus our attention to RCTs recognizing that the Alliance will encompass many other data types...."