Paper
Binary no-results status compresses together ancient debt and fresh drift. The clock separates them.
What does reporting debt look like once missing results are converted into time since due rather than a single binary flag? We analysed 249,507 eligible older closed interventional studies from the March 29, 2026 full-registry snapshot. We summarized current result-posting status, shares reported within 12, 24, 36, and 60 months, reporting-lag distributions for reported studies, and overdue years beyond the two-year mark for unresolved studies. Pre-FDAAA cohorts remain the deepest debt pool: 87.7 percent unresolved, median reported lag 2,247 days, and mean unresolved debt 18.6 years beyond the two-year mark. By sponsor class, OTHER_GOV is worst on unresolved older studies at 95.7 percent, while industry still combines a 58.1 percent unresolved rate with 9.35 mean overdue years beyond the two-year mark. The clock therefore separates ancient unresolved stock from newer cohorts that are still drifting into silence. These timing summaries use current registry status and do not infer when unpublished external papers may have appeared yet.