Research published in Clinical Trial Magnifier analysed The US clinical trial register data to characterise industry and partially non-industry sponsored oncology clinical trials. The analysis found 2,248 trials with 45,882 study sites and 420,378 study subjects for industry-sponsored oncology phase I-IV trials on drugs and biologics.

The publication previously reported that most industry-sponsored trials were in oncology, followed by CNS, cardiology, infectious diseases, endocrinology and respiratory diseases. Over the past two years the number of cancer trials and sites has increased proportionate by about twice as much as all other therapeutic areas combined. Oncology now accounts for 20.8% of all industry sponsored trials and 20.9% of all sites. Non-industry sponsored oncology trials account for 40.1% of all these, and 75.7% of sites. Prostate, breast, lung and colorectal-anal cancers have the highest incidence rate in the US, affecting between 72.0 and 50.6 per 100,000 population. They account for 54.6% of all cancer types and represent 54.1% of all industry sponsored oncology clinical trial subjects.

The authors identified that ‘oncology has become the main focus of the industry in developing new medicinal products’.

Source: http://www.clinicalresearchclinic.com

Clinical Trial Magnifier Vol. 2:8 Aug 2009 ISBN 978-962-85405-4-9 Industry Sponsored Oncology Clinical Trials
By Johan PE Karlberg, et al,Clinical Trials Centre, Li Ka Shing Faculty of Medicine, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR, PR China