Diagnosing the declining industry sponsorship in clinical research

By many measures, industry sponsorship is a crucial and even irreplaceable funding source for clinical research. This study aims to analyze the engagement of industry sponsorship in clinical research, which has seen a notable decline, from 43.61% in 2000 to 24.68% in 2020. To anatomy the characteristics of industry sponsored clinical trials and to diagnose its recent decline, 435,561 original records from ClinicalTrials.gov are analyzed to revisit the ever-changing role of industry sponsorship in clinical research, as well as its profound and far-reaching impacts. While the percentage of industry sponsorship in clinical trials has been decreasing in general throughout the last two decades, it remains the majority of funding sources for clinical research in specific areas around the Pacific Rim, but excluding the U.S. and China. Against the traditional wisdom that connects industry sponsorship to the late phases of clinical trials, it is observed that industry sponsorship shares a higher percentage than public sponsorship in and only in phase 1 clinical trials. Most significantly, data-driven results reveal that industry sponsorship contributes less to epidemic diseases than to non-communicable diseases. Recognizing this universal dilemma in the whole sector, the complementary roles of external collaboration and open innovation should be addressed to help facilitate R&D (research & development) decisions and hence improve investment returns in late phase clinical research. Analysis results remind policy-makers as well as related industry stakeholders of the need to further motivate the engagement of industry sponsorship in epidemic clinical research, especially during the post pandemic period.