Clinical study reports ( CSRs ) are large documents , sometimes thousands of pages long , which are generated for regulatory purposes and follow a standard format set out under international guidance . 22 They are routinely created for industry trials , and less well known in the academic community , but contain a wealth of detail on methods and results that is often missing from other sources 23 : one recent study estimates that CSRs contain twice as much information on benefits and harms as academic papers on trials . 24 From 2010 the European Medicines Agency began releasing CSRs on request , after a European ombudsman ruling of maladministration against the agency for withholding such information . 25 Individual patient data ( IPD ) is the raw data collected during a clinical trial , with detailed information on each individual participant . As such it presents important opportunities for research - for example , by allowing third parties to verify trialists ' initial analyses ; permitting meta - analysis of pooled IPD for more accurate point estimates of benefits ; giving greater power for subgroup analyses ; and allowing new hypotheses to be explored in existing data , including on abandoned products and treatments . [ 26][27][28 ] However , it also presents a risk of re - identification of pseudonymised participants . Because of this , IPD is not generally posted in public but shared through various controlled access mechanisms , as with other forms of rich electronic health record data used by epidemiologists .