Funding Sources of Therapeutic and Vaccine Clinical Trials for COVID-19 vs Non–COVID-19 Indications, 2020-2021

Abstract

ImportanceEffective COVID-19 vaccines and therapeutics reached the market within the first year of the pandemic. This rate of development and availability was an unprecedented achievement that required attention to numerous research and development, regulatory, and policy challenges. However, only limited evidence is currently available on the sources of funding for COVID-19 clinical trials.ObjectiveTo compare the number and funding sources of clinical trials aimed at investigating therapeutics and vaccines for COVID-19 vs those for all non–COVID-19 indications.Design, Setting, and ParticipantsIn this cross-sectional study, clinical trials in phase 1 to 3 that were registered to start between January 1, 2020, and August 31, 2021, were examined. All relevant data were collected from ClinicalTrials.gov.Main Outcomes and MeasuresNumber of clinical trials and their funding sources.ResultsA total of 1977 clinical trials that addressed COVID-19 therapeutics and vaccines were registered worldwide with starting dates from January 1, 2020, to August 31, 2021. This cohort represented 13.9% of all trials (N = 14 274) during the same period. Most of the COVID-19 therapeutic and vaccine clinical trials were funded by public sources (1144 [57.9%]), followed by industry (540 [27.3%]) and public-private partnerships (293 [14.8%]). Most of these studies focused on the development of anti–COVID-19 therapeutics (1680 [85.0%]) rather than vaccines (297 [15.0%]).Conclusions and RelevanceThe findings of this study suggest that publicly funded research and medical institutions played a leading role as funding sources for generating effective COVID-19 therapeutics and vaccines during the first 1.5 years of the pandemic and were most likely instrumental in their rapid development. It may be beneficial for the public sector to maintain the affordability and global access to these therapeutics and vaccines to ensure that they remain available for use worldwide.