Background: Clinical trials have been criticized on various counts. Any attempt to improve how trials are conducted or reported requires--amongst other things--an understanding of the number, the nature and the location of those that sponsor them or collaborate on them. Here we sought to identify the nature and location of each sponsor/collaborator.
Methods and findings: We examined the 'sponsor/collaborator' field for the 69,160 drug trials that were registered with ClinicalTrials.gov over a 9-year period (2005-2014). Of the 12,823 unique sponsors, 56% had sponsored only one and 27% had sponsored 2-5 trials each. Just 18% were involved with six or more trials each, and we have (arbitrarily) labeled these organizations as 'more experienced' in sponsoring/collaborating on trials. These 18% (2,266 sponsors/collaborators) were analyzed further: (a) 951 were corporate organizations and (b) 1,145 were non-corporates (including 31 individuals) with (c) 170 unclassified. Further, we identified the location of each organization in (a) and (b).
Conclusions: Clinical trials are an important part of a nation's research endeavors, and ultimately contribute to the health of its people. Thus, understanding the clinical trial landscape--including the number and nature of sponsors, and how active they are--is important for every country. We believe that policy makers in particular should be interested in this study to understand the current situation, and to use the numbers as a baseline for the evolving landscape, to assess the impact of their strategies in future.