How many clinical trials start each year?

About 31,100 clinical trials registered on ClinicalTrials.gov started in 2025, up from about 11,900 in 2008 and 1,900 in 2000, the registry's first year. Early years count fewer trials because registering wasn't required until medical journals asked for it in 2005 and a U.S. law did in 2007; late registrations still add a few to recent years. ClinicalTrials.gov lists trials from around the world, not only the U.S.

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Key facts

Measure: Clinical trials started. Written from the data below.

  • The latest figure, for 2025, is 31,116.
  • That is 17 times the 2000 figure, 1,876.
  • It is the highest in the data, which go back to 2000.
  • The lowest was 1,876 in 2000.

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Source and date

Source
ClinicalTrials.gov (U.S. National Library of Medicine), counted with its API v2
License
Public domain (U.S. government work); source National Library of Medicine
Data as of
Published

Citation

Chartly. “How many clinical trials start each year?” Chart. Data: ClinicalTrials.gov (U.S. National Library of Medicine), counted with its API v2, https://clinicaltrials.gov/data-api/api (data as of November 3, 2026). https://chart.ly/charts/clinical-trials-started-per-year (accessed November 4, 2026).

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The data

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The file has the numbers in this table, with the source, license and date. Please credit the source and Chartly. Developers can also get them as JSON (how).

Year the trial started Clinical trials started
2000 1,876
2001 2,407
2002 3,497
2003 4,770
2004 6,320
2005 7,729
2006 9,299
2007 10,422
2008 11,900
2009 12,849
2010 13,420
2011 14,216
2012 15,028
2013 15,896
2014 17,602
2015 18,951
2016 20,371
2017 21,265
2018 22,875
2019 23,834
2020 23,603
2021 28,352
2022 28,123
2023 29,515
2024 30,727
2025 31,116

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