Where does abandoned data go?

I have recently been looking for data to test some ideas on TQT modeling, and I began to wonder: Where does data go when a company goes out of business? We all know that drug development has a low probability of success from nonclinical study to registration, but what happens to the data for projects that don’t succeed?

For companies that continue developing other assets, I know that it typically sits in databases waiting a future analysis that may give it value. For companies that go out of business, I’m guessing that the data just disappears, in effect.

I recognize that there are significant legal hurdles to releasing data (privacy regulation, potential legal repercussions if something were found after the fact, etc.) and theoretical business reasons that it may desired to keep the data private (e.g. what if a different indication were found for the mechanism).

Mainly, I think it would be nice and beneficial to science if discontinued development data were somehow released or made more generally available. And, I was wondering if others have seen data make its way out after the fact.

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