COVID-19 clinical trials have risen by 639 percent, says report

According to a new report, there has been a 639 percent increase in the number of COVID-19 clinical trials worldwide, from 549 COVID-19 clinical trials in early April 2020 to over 4,000 in January 2021. Of this figure, 762 trials are taking place in the US – a figure greatly outnumbering activity in other countries, according to GlobalData.

Scotty Chung-Siu, Senior Analyst at GlobalData, commented: “The largest increase in trials was between 6 April and 19 April 2020, with 411 new studies started. That number has continued to increase every week with no regression showing.”

The report says that the US greatly outnumbers all other countries in the number of COVID-19 clinical trials with 762, while China is in second place with 462. India and Iran are the only other countries that have over 400 clinical trials.

According to the new report, there are currently 4,058 clinical trials investigating potential COVID-19 treatments, up from 3,864 on 14 December 2020. The researchers say that this growth is likely to continue to rise in the future. 

“The increase in clinical trial numbers is most likely influenced by the prevalence of the disease in these countries, which provides a larger patient population for trials. New trials are being added as companies are continuing to investigate drug candidates despite some having already been approved,” said Chung-Siu.