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# Over 1,000 Clinical Trials Halted Due to Covid-19
- URL: https://www.fdaweb.com/over-1-000-clinical-trials-halted-due-to-covid-19/
- Published: 2020-05-08T12:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-09-14T16:14:16.000Z
- Author: David McFarland
- Tags: Drugs, #legacy-id-D5146753

A German researcher says that the Covid-19 pandemic is having a large impact on drug development, with over 1,000 trials having been stopped due to restrictions brought on by the virus. “The Covid-19 pandemic has also caused a setback for entire programs of human research, possibly delaying the advent of new drugs, evidence of drugs’ efficacy in new indications or combinations, or informative negative results,” said researcher **Benjamin Carlisle** in an online draft [research paper](https://covid19.bgcarlisle.com/published/full-report-2020-05-07.html?ref=fdaweb.com). “While many clinical trials were suspended with the intention of restarting after the Covid-19 pandemic, the prospect of starting again is far from certain for any clinical trial that has stopped, and even in cases where a clinical trial resumes after the pandemic, there may be reduced statistical power, more funding needed, or changes to the protocol to accommodate for the interruption... The large volume of stopped clinical trials due to Covid-19 also affects research institutions, investigators, researchers and other staff who run such trials.”

An examination of *ClinicalTrials.com* by Carlisle found 2,522 clinical trial registry entries that were suspended, terminated or withdrawn (“stopped”) between 12/1/2019 and 5/5/2020, and 1,099 (44%) were closed with a reported reason that explicitly mentioned Covid-19\. He said there was a combined enrollment of 39,405 patients in trials stopped due to Covid-19 that reported actual patient enrollment, and a combined enrollment of 4,092,344 patients in trials stopped due to Covid-19 that reported anticipated patient enrollment.