German register of clinical studies

The German Register of Clinical Studies (DRKS) is a free, publicly accessible register for clinical studies. The DRKS is administered by the Medical Biometry and Medical Informatics Department of the University Hospital Freiburg and the German Cochrane Centre (DCZ). The DRKS is funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) and designed in cooperation with the WHO. The German Register of Clinical Trials has been recognised as a WHO primary register since 2008 and therefore meets the requirements of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE). All WHO primary registers are merged into one meta-register according to the requirements of the ICMJE, so that all studies are combined and the data are internationally accessible.

Registration in a WHO-recognised primary register before the start of the clinical trial is a prerequisite for publication in a recognised medical journal. Failure to register the study in a WHO-recognized primary registry before the start of the clinical trial therefore renders the study results virtually worthless.

For the German Register of Clinical Trials to be recognized as a primary register, the following requirements had to be met: At least 20 parameters must be systematically recorded in German and English and transferred to the WHO portal. The German Register of Clinical Trials is managed by an independent institution and is free of charge.