Breast cancer tops clinical studies for fourth year as overall trial attrition rates rise
21 Jan 2025
Breast cancer continues to be the world’s most studied disease in clinical trials, topping all categories for a fourth successive year, according to data analytics leader Phesi.
But its survey also revealed overall clinical attrition rates remain far higher than pre-Covid and have risen year on year.
The company’s latest annual review, of international trials during 2024, looked at more than 67,000 carried out during the 12 month period, highlighting the five most studied conditions.
For the second consecutive year, the three highest places are taken by breast cancer, followed by solid tumour and stroke.
In fourth place is prostate cancer, ranked fifth during 2023. Fifth ranked this year is non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), which was last included in the upper echelon in 2021.
Also noteworthy, the tables – comparing all four years since Phesi launched its annual report in 2021– show this is the first time that Covid-19 has not featured among the leading five studied diseases.
“There are two main forces driving treatment innovation: the unmet needs of patients and our improved understanding of disease,” stated Phesi CEO and founder Dr Gen Li.
“The former is why breast cancer unsurprisingly remains the world’s most-researched disease, since it is the top killer among women with cancer. The latter explains NSCLC’s re-entry into the top 5, since we have seen an increase in the number of biomarker-specific trials in this disease.”
He added that the focus on precision medicine represented positive news for patients because more precise trials were likely to achieve both a higher success rate and improved ROI.
The analysis based on data from Phesi’s AI-driven Trial Accelerator platform reveals that more than half (51%) of all NSCLC trials are now biomarker-specific.
The analysis also confirmed a continued overall trend that remains an issue of concern: Phase ll clinical attrition rates, which notably increased in 2022 to 30% and recorded 29% in 2023, reached 31% in 2024.
Given that this represents a 50% increase from the 20% average that preceded the COVID-19 pandemic the indications are that the industry was “wasting tens of millions of dollars on trials that ultimately fail,” warned the company.
Li added, “We are disappointed that the Phase II clinical trial attrition rate remained so high in 2024. We hoped that we would see a reduction in the attrition rate now that the COVID-19 pandemic is behind us. This attrition rate will inevitably have a knock-on effect in Phase III and a significant negative impact on companies’ ROI.”
It remained “clearer than ever,” said Li that trial sponsors must focus on utilising data science, AI and clinical data analytics for precision in order to deliver smarter trials and faster cures.
UK Phase I trials increase 70%: The number of ongoing advanced therapy clinical trials in the UK reached 187 in 2024, an increase of 7% year on year, with a 70% rise in the number of Phase I trials – up from 24 to 41.
The Cell and Gene Therapy Catapult’s (CGT Catapult) UK 2024 Advanced Therapy Medicinal Product (ATMP) Clinical Trials Database states that the UK featured in 9.5% of all global trials and almost 50% of all European trials in 2024. In all, there were 27 new or initiated trials in 2024, compared with 13 in 2023 – indicating a growing pipeline of products.
Photo: National Cancer Institute
