Original research evaluating adherence to the SAGER guidelines in industry-sponsored clinical publications

Insight

• Sex and gender are key determinants of health that affect disease progression, treatment response, and healthcare access. These biological and social factors contribute to persistent disparities in health outcomes, with women often experiencing a disproportionate burden of morbidity and mortality
• Sex and gender considerations remain inconsistently integrated into clinical research, limiting the relevance and generalisability of clinical trial outcomes
• The Sex and Gender Equity in Research (SAGER) publication guidelines aim to address this challenge and have been widely adopted by journals but it is unknown how well they are adhered to in practice

Implement

• To address this gap, we conducted original research with industry professionals, reviewing RCTs in chronic immunological conditions published between Sept 2023–Sept 2024
• Using the SAGER checklist, we assessed how sex and gender were considered in study design, analysis, and reporting, and evaluated journal author instructions and authorship demographics for influencing factors
• The findings highlight a need for cross-industry collaboration to improve sex/gender reporting, with pharmaceutical companies and publishers needing to lead change and reduce health inequities
• Our findings were submitted to the International Society of Medical Publication Professionals (ISMPP) meetings in 2025 (London and Washington)
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Impact

• The abstract was accepted as both an oral presentation and a highly interactive guided poster tour at the 2025 Annual European Meeting, maximising visibility and creating valuable opportunities for in-depth dialogue, knowledge exchange, and stakeholder engagement to support broader adoption of the findings
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Iterate

• We subsequently convened two implementation science roundtable sessions with multi-stakeholder audiences at the 2026 ISMPP meetings, creating a collaborative forum for participants to identify organisational barriers to SAGER guideline adoption and co-develop actionable strategies to drive sustainable implementation across their organisations