ClinicalTrials.gov Studies Scraper

Extract structured study records from the official ClinicalTrials.gov API.

Use this Apify Actor to monitor trials, sponsors, interventions, phases, locations, eligibility fields, and study URLs without maintaining your own API pagination code.

What does ClinicalTrials.gov Studies Scraper do?

ClinicalTrials.gov Studies Scraper searches the public ClinicalTrials.gov API v2 and saves normalized study records to an Apify dataset.

It is HTTP-only and does not use a browser.

It works with public data from ClinicalTrials.gov.

It supports broad search and precise filters.

It exports clean records for spreadsheets, BI tools, CRMs, data warehouses, and monitoring workflows.

Who is it for?

🧪 Pharma competitive intelligence teams can monitor recruiting and completed trials by condition, intervention, or sponsor.

🏥 Clinical trial recruitment teams can discover studies by disease area, country, status, and eligibility fields.

📊 Healthcare market researchers can enrich market maps with trial phase, sponsor, country, and enrollment data.

🔬 Biotech business development teams can follow pipeline activity around drug classes, diseases, and sponsor names.

⚙️ Data engineers can schedule repeatable ClinicalTrials.gov exports from Apify and deliver them to downstream systems.

Why use this actor?

ClinicalTrials.gov has an official API, but users still need pagination, filtering, normalization, and export handling.

This actor wraps that API in an Apify-ready workflow.

You get a dataset with stable field names.

You can schedule runs.

You can integrate output through Apify API, webhooks, dataset exports, or MCP.

You can avoid building one-off scripts for every trial monitoring request.

Typical workflows

Monitor new recruiting oncology trials each week.

Build a sponsor-specific pipeline tracker.

Export Phase 3 studies for a therapeutic area.

Find trial countries and site locations for recruitment planning.

Enrich internal company or drug databases with ClinicalTrials.gov identifiers.

Track when studies were first posted or last updated.

Input filters

The actor supports these filters:

• searchTerm for free-text ClinicalTrials.gov search.
• condition for disease or condition queries.
• intervention for drug, device, biologic, procedure, or treatment names.
• sponsor for sponsor or collaborator names.
• location for city, state, country, or facility text.
• nctIds for exact study IDs.
• statuses for recruitment status filters.
• studyTypes for interventional, observational, or expanded access studies.
• phases for trial phase filters.
• maxItems for output limits.
• includeLongText for full summary and eligibility text.
• sort for optional API sort expressions.

Output data

Each dataset row is one ClinicalTrials.gov study.

The actor exports identifiers, titles, statuses, study design, conditions, interventions, sponsor data, location data, dates, eligibility fields, and URLs.

Data fields

Field	Description
nctId	ClinicalTrials.gov study ID.
briefTitle	Brief study title.
officialTitle	Official study title.
overallStatus	Current overall recruitment/status value.
lastKnownStatus	Last known status when available.
studyType	Interventional, observational, or expanded access.
phases	Trial phases.
conditions	Conditions or diseases.
keywords	Study keywords.
interventions	Intervention names and aliases.
interventionTypes	Intervention type categories.
leadSponsor	Lead sponsor name.
leadSponsorClass	Sponsor class.
collaborators	Collaborator names.
locations	Facility, city, state, country, and location status.
countries	Unique countries from locations.
enrollmentCount	Enrollment count.
enrollmentType	Actual or estimated enrollment.
sex	Eligibility sex.
minimumAge	Minimum eligibility age.
maximumAge	Maximum eligibility age.
healthyVolunteers	Whether healthy volunteers are accepted.
startDate	Study start date.
primaryCompletionDate	Primary completion date.
completionDate	Completion date.
studyFirstSubmitDate	First submitted date.
studyFirstPostDate	First posted date.
lastUpdateSubmitDate	Last update submitted date.
lastUpdatePostDate	Last update posted date.
resultsFirstSubmitDate	Results first submitted date when available.
briefSummary	Study summary, trimmed unless long text is enabled.
eligibilityCriteria	Eligibility criteria, trimmed unless long text is enabled.
sourceUrl	Public ClinicalTrials.gov study page.
apiUrl	API URL used for the page that returned the record.
fetchedAt	Timestamp when the actor saved the record.

How much does it cost to scrape ClinicalTrials.gov studies?

The actor uses pay-per-event pricing.

There is a small start charge per run.

There is a per-study charge for each saved dataset item.

The exact live price is shown on the Apify Store pricing panel.

Use maxItems to control run size and cost.

Example input: recruiting cancer trials

{
  "searchTerm": "cancer",
  "statuses": ["RECRUITING"],
  "maxItems": 100
}

Example input: sponsor monitoring

{
  "condition": "diabetes",
  "sponsor": "Pfizer",
  "maxItems": 100
}

Example input: exact NCT IDs

{
  "nctIds": ["NCT05162118"],
  "includeLongText": true,
  "maxItems": 1
}

How to run on Apify

1. Open the actor page on Apify.
2. Enter a search term or one or more filters.
3. Set maxItems to the number of studies you need.
4. Run the actor.
5. Download the dataset as JSON, CSV, Excel, XML, or RSS.
6. Schedule the actor if you need recurring monitoring.

Tips for better results

Use condition when you know the disease area.

Use intervention when tracking a drug, biologic, device, or procedure.

Use sponsor for company or institution monitoring.

Use statuses to focus on recruiting or active studies.

Use includeLongText when you need full eligibility criteria.

Keep maxItems small for exploratory runs.

Increase maxItems for scheduled production exports.

Integrations

Send new study records to Google Sheets for research analysts.

Push sponsor-specific trial records to a data warehouse.

Trigger webhooks when scheduled monitoring runs finish.

Use dataset exports in CSV or Excel for manual review.

Use the Apify API from Python or Node.js for automated enrichment.

Use MCP to let AI assistants query recent trial data through Apify.

API usage with Node.js

import { ApifyClient } from 'apify-client';

const client = new ApifyClient({ token: process.env.APIFY_TOKEN });
const run = await client.actor('automation-lab/clinicaltrials-gov-studies-scraper').call({
  condition: 'Alzheimer Disease',
  phases: ['PHASE3'],
  maxItems: 100,
});
console.log(run.defaultDatasetId);

API usage with Python

from apify_client import ApifyClient
import os

client = ApifyClient(os.environ['APIFY_TOKEN'])
run = client.actor('automation-lab/clinicaltrials-gov-studies-scraper').call(run_input={
    'condition': 'Alzheimer Disease',
    'phases': ['PHASE3'],
    'maxItems': 100,
})
print(run['defaultDatasetId'])

API usage with cURL

curl -X POST 'https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/automation-lab~clinicaltrials-gov-studies-scraper/runs?token=YOUR_APIFY_TOKEN' \
  -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  -d '{"searchTerm":"cancer","statuses":["RECRUITING"],"maxItems":100}'

MCP usage

Use Apify MCP to call this actor from Claude Code, Claude Desktop, or other MCP clients.

MCP server URL:

https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=automation-lab/clinicaltrials-gov-studies-scraper

Add it in Claude Code:

$claude mcp add apify-clinicaltrials "https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=automation-lab/clinicaltrials-gov-studies-scraper"

Claude Desktop JSON config:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "apify-clinicaltrials": {
      "url": "https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=automation-lab/clinicaltrials-gov-studies-scraper"
    }
  }
}

Example prompts:

• "Run the ClinicalTrials.gov scraper for recruiting pancreatic cancer trials and summarize sponsors by country."
• "Extract Phase 3 Alzheimer studies and list the top sponsors."
• "Monitor Pfizer diabetes trials and flag newly updated studies."

Scheduling and monitoring

Clinical trial data changes over time.

For monitoring, create a saved task with your filters.

Schedule it daily, weekly, or monthly.

Compare new datasets against previous runs by nctId and date fields.

Use Apify webhooks to notify your team when a scheduled run completes.

Data freshness

The actor fetches live data from ClinicalTrials.gov API v2 at run time.

The output includes fetchedAt so you know when each record was saved.

ClinicalTrials.gov records may be updated by sponsors and investigators after your run.

For compliance-sensitive workflows, keep the dataset export and run timestamp with your internal record.

Limits and caveats

This actor only exports public ClinicalTrials.gov data.

It does not infer medical meaning beyond fields returned by the API.

It does not guarantee that a study is currently accepting patients at every listed site.

Always verify clinical, regulatory, and recruitment decisions with the official study page and relevant professionals.

Legality and responsible use

ClinicalTrials.gov provides public study information.

Use the data responsibly and comply with applicable laws, policies, and ClinicalTrials.gov terms.

Do not use exported data for unlawful profiling, spam, or unauthorized medical claims.

Troubleshooting

If you receive fewer records than expected, broaden your filters.

If an exact NCT ID returns no result, check that the ID is typed correctly.

If summaries are too short, enable includeLongText.

If a scheduled monitor is too noisy, restrict by condition, sponsor, status, or phase.

FAQ

Does this scrape web pages?

No. It uses the official ClinicalTrials.gov API v2.

Do I need a ClinicalTrials.gov account?

No. The supported data is public.

Can I export all studies?

Yes, within run limits. Set broad filters and a high maxItems, but start with a smaller run to validate your workflow.

Can I monitor only recruiting studies?

Yes. Set statuses to RECRUITING or combine recruiting statuses such as RECRUITING and NOT_YET_RECRUITING.

Can I search by sponsor?

Yes. Use the sponsor input field.

Related scrapers

Explore related Automation Lab actors for healthcare, research, company, and contact enrichment workflows:

• https://apify.com/automation-lab/website-contact-finder
• https://apify.com/automation-lab/company-domain-finder
• https://apify.com/automation-lab/rss-feed-scraper

Support

If you need a field that is present in ClinicalTrials.gov API v2 but not exported here, open an Apify issue with a sample NCT ID.

If a run fails, include the run ID, input, and expected result.

Changelog

Initial version exports official ClinicalTrials.gov study records with filters, pagination, normalized fields, and pay-per-study charging.