GlaxoSmithKline has taken steps to open up more clinical data behind its drug trials, just months after the company was fined a record amount for ethical breaches.

From January all anonymised patient level data that sit hidden behind the results of clinical trials of its approved and failed drugs will be available without charge through a secure website once access has been approved.

Andrew Witty, GSK’s chief executive, said that the move sprang from a desire to dismiss the perception that drug companies are always “hiding something.”

“People have to really believe they are looking at the whole picture,” he …