ClinicalTrials.gov Scraper: Studies, Results & Updates

Search the public ClinicalTrials.gov v2 API and export normalized study records for research monitoring, competitive intelligence, recruiting analysis, and RAG pipelines.

📖 At a glance

Field	Details
Source	Official ClinicalTrials.gov v2 public API
Authentication	No API key required
Coverage	Global clinical study records registered in ClinicalTrials.gov, including country/state/city/facility locations when provided
Best for	Clinical trials scraper, recruiting trials API, eligibility criteria extraction, pharma pipeline monitoring, CRO intelligence, medical AI and RAG datasets
Pricing	$0.002 per saved study

🎯 Features

Feature	Description
Public v2 API	Uses ClinicalTrials.gov v2 directly; no API key is required.
Study search	Search by keyword, condition, intervention, sponsor, location, status, phase, or NCT ID.
Incremental updates	Use updatedSince to monitor studies whose LastUpdatePostDate changed after a date.
Results metadata	Captures whether participant flow, outcome measures, and adverse events result sections are present.
RAG-ready chunks	Optional text chunks from titles, summaries, eligibility, and outcomes.
Full raw records	Set outputFields to full to include raw protocol, derived, and results sections.

🚀 Quick Start

{
    "condition": "diabetes",
    "status": ["RECRUITING"],
    "maxItems": 10
}

📋 Input

Field	Type	Required	Default	Description
query	string	no	-	General ClinicalTrials.gov query.term expression.
condition	string	no	-	Condition or disease search.
intervention	string	no	-	Drug, device, procedure, biologic, or other intervention.
sponsor	string	no	-	Sponsor or collaborator search.
location	string	no	-	City, state, country, or facility search.
status	string[]	no	-	Overall status values such as RECRUITING or COMPLETED.
phase	string[]	no	-	Phase values such as PHASE2 or PHASE3.
nctIds	string[]	no	-	Specific NCT identifiers.
updatedSince	string	no	-	YYYY-MM-DD filter on LastUpdatePostDate.
outputFields	string	no	summary	summary for normalized output, full for raw sections too.
chunking	string	no	paragraph	paragraph or none.
maxItems	integer	no	10	Maximum saved studies.

Provide at least one search field for production runs. If no search field is provided, the Actor runs a one-item diabetes + RECRUITING sample so one-click platform tests complete successfully. Phase filtering uses the ClinicalTrials.gov v2 advanced query syntax AREA[Phase]....

📤 Output

Each dataset item is one study.

Field	Type	Description
nctId	string	ClinicalTrials.gov identifier.
title	string	Brief study title.
officialTitle	string	Official protocol title when available.
status	string	Overall study status.
phase	string[]	Study phases.
conditions	string[]	Conditions/diseases.
interventions	object[]	Intervention name, type, description, and arm labels.
sponsors	object	Lead sponsor and collaborators.
locations	object[]	Facility, city, state, country, and location status.
eligibility	string	Eligibility criteria text.
outcomes	object	Primary and secondary outcome modules.
meshTerms	object	Derived condition and intervention MeSH terms.
hasResults	boolean	Whether results data is indicated.
resultsSummary	object	Presence flags for participant flow, outcomes, and adverse events.
lastUpdate	string	LastUpdatePostDate.
url	string	Study page URL.
fullTextChunks	object[]	Optional text chunks for retrieval workflows.

Example Item

{
    "itemType": "study",
    "nctId": "NCT01884792",
    "title": "Example Diabetes Study",
    "status": "COMPLETED",
    "phase": ["PHASE2"],
    "conditions": ["Diabetes Mellitus"],
    "lastUpdate": "2026-06-01",
    "url": "https://clinicaltrials.gov/study/NCT01884792"
}

🍳 Recipes

Recruiting oncology trials

{
    "condition": "lung cancer",
    "status": ["RECRUITING"],
    "phase": ["PHASE2", "PHASE3"],
    "maxItems": 250
}

Use this to build a current recruiting landscape by disease area and phase.

Monitor changed studies

{
    "updatedSince": "2026-06-01",
    "outputFields": "full",
    "maxItems": 500
}

Use this pattern for daily or weekly monitoring. updatedSince filters against ClinicalTrials.gov LastUpdatePostDate.

Pull exact NCT records

{
    "nctIds": ["NCT01884792", "NCT04368728"],
    "outputFields": "full",
    "chunking": "none"
}

Use this when you already have identifiers from another workflow and need stable full records.

💳 Pricing

This Actor uses pay-per-event pricing: $0.002 per study extracted. A run fetching 1,000 studies costs approximately $2.00.

❓ FAQ

Do I need an API key?

No. ClinicalTrials.gov v2 is public and does not require an API key.

Can I export raw ClinicalTrials.gov sections?

Yes. Set outputFields to full to include protocolSection, derivedSection, and resultsSection in each item.

Why are phase filters implemented as advanced queries?

The current ClinicalTrials.gov v2 API supports phase filtering through advanced area expressions such as AREA[Phase]PHASE2.

⚠️ Legal & Compliance

ClinicalTrials.gov is a public registry. This Actor uses the official public API, applies conservative request spacing, and stores the data returned by the API. Review ClinicalTrials.gov terms and any downstream regulatory requirements before using exported data for clinical, legal, or compliance decisions.

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🤖 Use with AI agents

This Actor is callable as a tool by any MCP-capable agent — Claude, Cursor, VS Code — or by your own code, with no wrapper and nothing extra to deploy.

Connect over MCP

https://mcp.apify.com?tools=autofacts/clinical-trials-scraper

In a client that reads an mcpServers configuration block:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "apify": {
      "url": "https://mcp.apify.com?tools=autofacts/clinical-trials-scraper",
      "headers": { "Authorization": "Bearer YOUR_APIFY_TOKEN" }
    }
  }
}

The agent reads this Actor's parameters and their descriptions straight from the input schema, and the hosted server infers the result field types from the dataset schema — so a model knows what to send and what comes back before it ever calls anything.

Or call the API directly

curl -X POST "https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/autofacts~clinical-trials-scraper/run-sync-get-dataset-items?token=$APIFY_TOKEN" \
  -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  -d '{"condition": "diabetes", "status": ["RECRUITING"], "outputFields": "summary", "chunking": "paragraph", "maxItems": 1}'

The response body is the dataset records described above.

🧰 Other Actors by autofacts

Apify only auto-recommends Actors in the same category, so here are the ones that actually pair with this scraper:

Actor	What it's for
SEC EDGAR Scraper	Company filings, full text and XBRL financial facts
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Schema Markup Scraper & SEO Auditor	JSON-LD, Open Graph and a 0-100 SEO audit of any URL

All of them: apify.com/autofacts