Data Monitoring Committees: Current issues

Maintaining confidentiality of emerging data and ensuring the independence of Data Monitoring Committees are best practices of considerable importance to the ability of these committees to achieve their mission of safeguarding the interests of study participants and enhancing the integrity and credibility of clinical trials. Even with the wide recognition of these principles, there are circumstances where confidentiality issues remain challenging, controversial or inconsistently addressed. First, consider settings where a clinical trial's interim data could provide the evidence regulatory authorities require for decisions about marketing approval, yet where such a trial would be continued post-approval to provide more definitive evidence about principal safety and/or efficacy outcomes. In such settings, data informative about the longer term objectives of the trial should remain confidential until pre-specified criteria for trial completion have been met. Second, for those other than Data Monitoring Committee members, access to safety and efficacy outcomes during trial conduct, even when presented as data pooled across treatment arms, should be on a limited "need to know" basis relating to the ability to carry out ethical or scientific responsibilities in the conduct of the trial. Third, Data Monitoring Committee members should have access to unblinded efficacy and safety data throughout the trial to enable timely and informed judgments about risks and benefits. Fourth, it should be recognized that a mediator potentially could be useful in rare settings where the Data Monitoring Committee would have serious ethical or scientific concerns about the sponsor's dissemination or lack of dissemination of information. Data Monitoring Committee Contract Agreements, Indemnification Agreements and Charters should be developed in a manner to protect Data Monitoring Committee members and their independence, in order to enhance the Data Monitoring Committee's ability to effectively address their mission.