Oncology trials maintained their top spot on a list of 2020 trials, while the biggest increase in the number of trials was in the area of anti-infective drugs due to the monumental efforts to combat the COVID-19 crisis.

Informa Pharma Intelligence’s 2021 annual report shows that cancer drugs held the top four positions in the number of drug therapies being studied in 2020, with breast cancer coming in first at 924 drugs, followed by lung (710 drugs), colorectal (640 drugs) and pancreatic (563 drugs).

But COVID-19, with 553 drugs under trial, made its debut on the list of therapy areas at number five, moving ovarian, prostate and brain cancer down one spot each.

The study of anti-infective drugs saw the largest increase (22.4 percent) as of January 2021, the report found, noting that anti-infective trials were actually on the decline at the beginning of 2020.

Drug research has grown almost four-fold in the past 20 years, from 5,995 drugs in the trial pipeline in 2001 to 18,582 at the beginning of 2021. But the rate of growth took a hit in 2020, increasing by only 4.76 percent compared to 9.62 percent growth in 2019.

As of January 2021, there were 2,516 drugs in phase 1 trials, an increase of 6.4 percent over 2019, 2,694 in phase 2 (2 percent increase) and 1,020 in phase 3 (0.9 percent increase).

The 10 most active drug sponsors in 2020 were Novartis, Roche, Takeda Pharmaceuticals, Bristol Myers Squibb, Merck, Pfizer, Johnson and Johnson, AbbVie, AstraZeneca and Sanofi.

Read the full report here: https://bit.ly/31iMKfU.