Sponsor scorecards
Which sponsors have the highest share of trials stopped for each kind of reason, among sponsors with at least 15 stopped trials with a clear reason in this sample.
For comparison, across all 7,403 trials in the sample:
| Reason | Share overall |
|---|---|
| Slow accrual | 38% |
| Funding or business decisions | 28% |
| Investigator, site or staffing problems | 17% |
| Regulatory or ethics problems | 3% |
| Futility | 4% |
| Safety | 3% |
Slow accrual
Trials that enrolled too few people, too slowly.
| Sponsor | Share of its trials | Trials |
|---|---|---|
| Centre Hospitalier Universitaire de Saint Etienne | 100% | 22 of 22 |
| Burzynski Research Institute | 93% | 14 of 15 |
| European Organisation for Research and Treatment of Cancer - EORTC | 81% | 13 of 16 |
| M.D. Anderson Cancer Center | 71% | 54 of 76 |
| Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center | 68% | 13 of 19 |
| University Hospital, Montpellier | 67% | 14 of 21 |
| Roswell Park Cancer Institute | 65% | 11 of 17 |
| University of Wisconsin, Madison | 61% | 19 of 31 |
| Northwell Health | 60% | 9 of 15 |
| University of British Columbia | 57% | 12 of 21 |
Funding or business decisions
Trials that stopped for money or strategy.
| Sponsor | Share of its trials | Trials |
|---|---|---|
| AbbVie | 76% | 16 of 21 |
| Bristol-Myers Squibb | 63% | 17 of 27 |
| Janssen Research & Development, LLC | 61% | 11 of 18 |
| Biogen | 56% | 9 of 16 |
| Novartis Pharmaceuticals | 56% | 27 of 48 |
| Pfizer | 53% | 29 of 55 |
| Sanofi | 52% | 15 of 29 |
| University of California, San Diego | 50% | 12 of 24 |
| Gilead Sciences | 48% | 11 of 23 |
| University of Maryland, Baltimore | 47% | 8 of 17 |
Investigator, site or staffing problems
Trials that includes investigators who left, sites that closed and COVID disruption.
| Sponsor | Share of its trials | Trials |
|---|---|---|
| University of Missouri-Columbia | 53% | 8 of 15 |
| Case Comprehensive Cancer Center | 50% | 8 of 16 |
| The University of Texas Health Science Center, Houston | 45% | 10 of 22 |
| NYU Langone Health | 41% | 15 of 37 |
| Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey | 40% | 6 of 15 |
| University of Chicago | 38% | 8 of 21 |
| University of Miami | 38% | 6 of 16 |
| Columbia University | 36% | 12 of 33 |
| Baylor College of Medicine | 35% | 6 of 17 |
| University of Utah | 34% | 10 of 29 |
Regulatory or ethics problems
Trials that stopped over approvals or oversight.
| Sponsor | Share of its trials | Trials |
|---|---|---|
| Montefiore Medical Center | 20% | 4 of 20 |
| New York State Psychiatric Institute | 20% | 3 of 15 |
| University of Arkansas | 18% | 3 of 17 |
| Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center | 12% | 2 of 17 |
| Amgen | 11% | 2 of 18 |
| Sanofi | 10% | 3 of 29 |
| University of Minnesota | 10% | 3 of 30 |
| University of Nebraska | 9% | 2 of 22 |
| Milton S. Hershey Medical Center | 9% | 2 of 23 |
| University of Florida | 8% | 2 of 25 |
Futility
Trials that did not work well enough.
| Sponsor | Share of its trials | Trials |
|---|---|---|
| Eli Lilly and Company | 41% | 9 of 22 |
| GlaxoSmithKline | 23% | 9 of 39 |
| Gilead Sciences | 22% | 5 of 23 |
| Hoffmann-La Roche | 21% | 6 of 28 |
| Amgen | 17% | 3 of 18 |
| Janssen Research & Development, LLC | 17% | 3 of 18 |
| University of Washington | 14% | 3 of 21 |
| University of Manitoba | 13% | 2 of 15 |
| Biogen | 12% | 2 of 16 |
| AstraZeneca | 12% | 4 of 33 |
Safety
Trials that stopped over harm.
| Sponsor | Share of its trials | Trials |
|---|---|---|
| Takeda | 27% | 6 of 22 |
| Amgen | 22% | 4 of 18 |
| Merck Sharp & Dohme LLC | 15% | 4 of 26 |
| Eli Lilly and Company | 14% | 3 of 22 |
| Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center | 12% | 2 of 17 |
| Ohio State University | 10% | 2 of 20 |
| AbbVie | 10% | 2 of 21 |
| University Hospital, Montpellier | 10% | 2 of 21 |
| Gilead Sciences | 9% | 2 of 23 |
| Novartis Pharmaceuticals | 8% | 4 of 48 |
How to read this
These are shares of stopped trials in a sample, not failure rates: the registry does not say how many trials a sponsor ran or finished, so a high share does not mean a sponsor fails more than others. Labels are automatic and unverified, small sponsors swing widely, and a sponsor's trials can stop for reasons outside its control. See the methodology.