Sunday, February 6, 2011

Welcome to ClisMap Blog

ClisMap is created to help you find clinical trials near you. One of the first things we discovered while working on it, is that largest amount of ongoing clinical trials are on Lung Cancer. We are not sure if it's because of tobacco taxes, but it's worth mentioning sponsors with largest number of clinical trials:
National Cancer Institute (NCI)more than 526 trials
National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI)more than 162 trials
Pfizermore than 140 trials
NIH recently videocasted NCI Clinical Trials and Translational Research Advisory Committee - March 2011 and I took a screenshot to put some perspectives on the dollar amount spent on clinical trials.
As you can see, in fiscal year of 2006, NCI allocated around $1 Billion in clinical trials. Note that this includes all NCI sponsored clinical trials, including breast, colon and other types of cancer. In comparison, federal government collected over $7.7 Billion in revenue from tobacco taxes in 2006 (see The Incidence of Tobacco Taxation) not to mention $15.2 Billion collected by state governments annually. How much did we benefit from this remains to be answered.

As it stands now, the law requires mandatory registration and results reporting for certain clinical trials of drugs, biologics, and devices. Currently, ClinicalTrials.gov seems to be lacking any information that would be actually useful for patients. ClisMap blog is indented to provide patient centric information in this regard and we look forward for your comments and suggestions.