In Bloomberg Law, Health Care Partner Discusses Clinical Trial Data Exemption From California Privacy Law

In a Sept. 24 article published in Bloomberg Law, health care partner Mark Barnes (Boston) examines how changes to the California Consumer Privacy Act of 2018 ease some concerns for clinical trials but may not go far enough in removing roadblocks to research.

Mr. Barnes explains that the new data privacy law only mentions clinical trials and not clinical research. This language may cause confusion as to the scope of the exception for Common Rule-regulated research. This exception may not cover much research using already collected data and real-world evidence research such as data collected from electronic medical records and billing data that relate to a patient’s health.