A new study finds that trials sponsored by the pharma industry fared better during the pandemic and were more likely to complete enrollment compared to trials sponsored by academia, hospitals and medical centers.

Pandemic mitigation efforts, such as social distancing and lockdowns, caused global trial completion rates to decline by 13 percent to 23 percent, depending on geographic location and who sponsored the trial, researchers from the Pennsylvania State College of Medicine found.

The researchers analyzed more than 117,000 clinical trials worldwide and also broke out trials conducted in the U.S., Europe and Asia. They compared the number of clinical trials submitted and completed between April and October in both 2019 and 2020, using data from the ClinicalTrials.gov database. To more accurately assess the impact of the pandemic, researchers analyzed the 2020 dataset both with and without data from trials related to COVID-19.

The study found a slight increase in the overall number of clinical trial submissions between April and October of 2020 compared to 2019, but with COVID-19 related trials removed, there was a 9.7 percent decrease in the number of submitted trials. Globally, there was a 13.3 percent decline in the number of clinical trials completed in 2020 with COVID-19 studies included, but that figure grows to a 16.7 percent decline without those studies. In the U.S., a 17 percent decline in completed trials occurred in 2020 with COVID-19 studies included; excluded, it was a 19.1 percent decline.

Read the report here: https://bit.ly/3wA8O48.