🔬 ClinicalTrials.gov Scraper

🚀 Export FDA-registered clinical trial data in seconds. Search 500,000+ trials by keyword, status, and phase. No API key, no registration, no manual data wrangling.

🕒 Last updated: 2026-05-21 · 📊 14 fields per record · 🔬 500,000+ trials · 🌍 220+ countries · 💊 All therapeutic areas

The ClinicalTrials.gov Scraper exports structured clinical trial data from the NIH National Library of Medicine registry and returns 14 fields per record, including trial identifiers, status, phase, conditions, interventions, sponsors, enrollment counts, study type, and geographic locations. ClinicalTrials.gov is the world's largest registry of clinical studies and is mandated by the FDA for all regulated trials conducted in the United States and abroad.

The registry covers interventional and observational studies across every therapeutic area, from oncology and cardiology to rare diseases and behavioral health. This Actor makes that data downloadable as CSV, Excel, JSON, or XML in seconds. All filters run on the API, so you skip the parser engineering entirely.

🎯 Target Audience	💡 Primary Use Cases
Life sciences analysts, clinical researchers, pharma competitive intelligence teams, academic epidemiologists, healthcare journalists, patient advocacy organizations	Trial monitoring dashboards, competitive landscape analysis, site feasibility research, regulatory compliance tracking, academic literature support

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📋 What the ClinicalTrials.gov Scraper does

Four search workflows in a single run:

• 🔍 Keyword search. Find trials by disease, drug name, intervention, or any clinical term.
• 📊 Status filter. Scope to Recruiting, Completed, Active, Not Yet Recruiting, or Terminated trials.
• 🧪 Phase filter. Narrow to Phase 1, 2, 3, 4, or Not Applicable studies.
• 📦 Bulk export. Collect up to 1,000,000 trials per run as CSV, Excel, JSON, or XML.

Each record includes the NCT identifier, full trial title, direct ClinicalTrials.gov URL, status, phase, conditions studied, interventions used, lead sponsor, enrollment target, study type, and a list of participating locations.

💡 Why it matters: ClinicalTrials.gov is the authoritative source for FDA-regulated trial data, but the website offers no native bulk download. Building your own pipeline means reading paginated API responses, handling token-based pagination, and normalizing nested JSON. This Actor handles all of that and returns clean, flat records ready for analysis.

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🎬 Full Demo

🚧 Coming soon: a 3-minute walkthrough showing how to go from sign-up to a downloaded dataset.

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⚙️ Input

Input	Type	Default	Behavior
searchQuery	string	"diabetes type 2"	Keywords to search. Matches title, conditions, interventions, sponsors, and protocol text.
maxItems	integer	10	Records to return. Free plan caps at 10, paid plan at 1,000,000.
status	select	"RECRUITING"	Filter by overall trial status. Empty = all statuses.
phase	select	""	Filter by clinical phase (Phase 1-4, Not Applicable). Empty = all phases.

Example: Phase 3 recruiting trials for breast cancer.

{
    "searchQuery": "breast cancer",
    "status": "RECRUITING",
    "phase": "PHASE3",
    "maxItems": 100
}

Example: All completed COVID-19 vaccine trials.

{
    "searchQuery": "COVID-19 vaccine",
    "status": "COMPLETED",
    "phase": "",
    "maxItems": 500
}

⚠️ Good to Know: ClinicalTrials.gov data is self-reported by study sponsors and is not independently verified by the NIH or FDA. Some fields such as completion date and enrollment count may be estimates. Always cross-reference with the original trial record for regulatory or clinical decision-making.

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📊 Output

Each trial record contains 14 fields. Download the dataset as CSV, Excel, JSON, or XML.

🧾 Schema

Field	Type	Example
🆔 nctId	string	"NCT06338553"
🏷️ title	string	"GLP-1Ra Impact on Metabolic Outcomes in Stage 2 T1DM..."
🔗 url	string	"https://clinicaltrials.gov/study/NCT06338553"
📊 status	string	"RECRUITING"
🧪 phase	string	"EARLY_PHASE1"
🏥 condition	string	"Type 1 Diabetes"
💊 intervention	string	"Semaglutide (Rybelsus®); Placebo"
🏢 sponsor	string	"Vanderbilt University Medical Center"
📅 startDate	string	"2024-06-12"
📅 completionDate	string	"2027-03"
👥 enrollmentCount	integer	24
🔬 studyType	string	"INTERVENTIONAL"
📍 locations	array	["Nashville, United States"]
🕒 scrapedAt	ISO 8601	"2026-05-22T01:16:46.355Z"

📦 Sample records

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✨ Why choose this Actor

Feature	Benefit
🌐 No API key required	Public data, zero setup friction
📊 500,000+ trials indexed	The most comprehensive clinical trial registry in the world
🔍 Full-text keyword search	Find trials by drug name, disease, sponsor, or protocol term
🧪 Phase + status filters	Narrow results server-side — no post-processing needed
📍 Location extraction	City and country from every participating site
💊 Intervention parsing	Comma-separated list of all intervention arms
📦 Bulk export ready	CSV, Excel, JSON, XML — all via the Apify dataset UI
⚡ Fast pagination	Token-based cursor pagination, up to 100 records per request

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📈 How it compares to alternatives

Approach	Speed	Setup	Bulk export	Filtering
This Actor	Seconds	None	CSV/Excel/JSON/XML	Keyword + status + phase
Manual search on clinicaltrials.gov	Minutes per page	None	10,000 max via UI	Limited
Direct API calls	Fast	Dev effort	Custom pipeline	Full
Third-party trial databases	Varies	Subscription	Varies	Varies

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🚀 How to use

1. Create a free account w/ $5 credit
2. Open the ClinicalTrials.gov Scraper Actor page
3. Enter a search query (e.g. "lung cancer", "Alzheimer's disease", "COVID-19")
4. Select a status filter and optional phase
5. Set Max Items (free plan: 10, paid plan: up to 1,000,000)
6. Click Start and wait seconds for results
7. Download your dataset as CSV, Excel, JSON, or XML

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💼 Business use cases

🔬 Competitive intelligence in pharma

Track all Phase 3 recruiting trials for a target indication. Monitor competitor sponsor activity, trial start dates, enrollment targets, and geographic footprint in real time.

🏥 Site feasibility analysis

Search for trials by therapeutic area and filter to recruiting status. Extract location data to map participating sites, identify high-volume research centers, and support site selection decisions.

📰 Medical journalism and research reporting

Quickly pull all trials for a drug or disease into a spreadsheet. Cross-reference NCT IDs, sponsors, and phases to support fact-checking, data journalism, and systematic review screening.

🎓 Academic epidemiology and health research

Export large cohorts of trial records for meta-analysis, landscape mapping, or research gap identification. All fields are structured and clean - no HTML parsing required.

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🔌 Automating ClinicalTrials.gov Scraper

Connect this Actor to your existing tools without writing code:

• Make (Integromat) - schedule weekly pulls of recruiting trials for a target indication and push rows to Google Sheets
• Zapier - trigger a run on a schedule and send new trial NCT IDs to a Slack channel or Airtable base
• Apify Scheduler - run every Monday at 6 AM and export the latest dataset to your S3 bucket
• Apify API - call POST /v2/acts/parseforge~clinicaltrials-scraper/runs from your pipeline with custom input JSON

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🌟 Beyond business use cases

🔭 Research and science communication

Map the global distribution of recruiting trials for rare diseases. Visualize sponsor activity by country. Identify therapeutic areas with the most active Phase 2 pipelines.

🎨 Creative and journalism projects

Build a public-facing dashboard showing real-time trial activity for a specific disease. Create infographics comparing enrollment targets across Phase 3 oncology trials.

🌱 Non-profit and patient advocacy

Help patient communities find currently recruiting trials relevant to their condition. Export contacts and locations to support outreach to participating research centers.

🧑‍💻 Developer experimentation

Prototype a trial-matching tool, a research pipeline enrichment service, or a Slack bot that surfaces new trials for a disease keyword - all without touching the raw API pagination logic.

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🤖 Ask an AI assistant about this scraper

You can ask ChatGPT, Claude, or any AI assistant questions like:

• "What Phase 3 trials are recruiting for glioblastoma right now?"
• "How many completed trials exist for semaglutide?"
• "Which sponsors are running the most recruiting trials for Alzheimer's disease?"
• "Export 200 interventional trials for non-small cell lung cancer as Excel"

Pair the exported dataset with an AI analysis tool for instant research summaries.

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❓ Frequently Asked Questions

🔍 What is ClinicalTrials.gov?

ClinicalTrials.gov is the U.S. National Library of Medicine's registry of publicly and privately funded clinical studies conducted around the world. Registration is required for all FDA-regulated trials and is voluntary for many others.

📊 How many trials are available?

Over 500,000 studies from more than 220 countries as of 2026. The database grows by thousands of new registrations each month.

🔒 Is an API key required?

No. ClinicalTrials.gov API v2 is fully public and requires no authentication. This Actor uses it directly.

🧪 What does the phase filter cover?

Phase 1, 2, 3, and 4 trials, plus Early Phase 1 and Not Applicable (for observational and device studies). When a trial spans multiple phases (e.g., Phase 2/3), both appear in the phase field.

📅 How current is the data?

The Actor fetches live data from the ClinicalTrials.gov API on every run. Records reflect the state of the registry at the time of your run.

💊 What types of interventions are captured?

Drug, biologic, device, procedure, behavioral, dietary supplement, genetic, radiation, combination product, and other intervention types - all as reported by the trial sponsor.

📍 How are locations formatted?

Each location is returned as "City, Country" (e.g., "Boston, United States"). Multi-site trials return an array of all participating locations.

🏥 Can I filter by sponsor or institution?

Yes - include the sponsor name in your searchQuery (e.g., "Pfizer diabetes" or "Mayo Clinic oncology"). The API searches across all text fields including sponsor name.

📦 What export formats are supported?

CSV, Excel (XLSX), JSON, and XML - all available via the Apify dataset UI with one click.

🆓 What is the free plan limit?

Free plan users receive up to 10 trial records per run as a preview. Upgrade to a paid plan to export up to 1,000,000 records.

🔄 Can I run this on a schedule?

Yes. Use the Apify Scheduler to run this Actor automatically - daily, weekly, or on any cron schedule - and always have a fresh dataset.

📋 Is this Actor maintained?

Yes. ParseForge monitors the ClinicalTrials.gov API for changes and updates the Actor when the upstream API changes. Check the Last updated date at the top of this README.

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🔌 Integrate with any app

Export your clinical trial dataset to any downstream tool:

Spreadsheets & BI: Google Sheets, Microsoft Excel, Tableau, Power BI, Looker Studio

Databases: PostgreSQL, MySQL, MongoDB, BigQuery, Snowflake, Airtable

Automation: Make (Integromat), Zapier, n8n, Pipedream, Retool

Storage: AWS S3, Google Cloud Storage, Azure Blob Storage

Code: Python (pandas), R, JavaScript - via the Apify REST API or official SDKs

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Disclaimer: This Actor is an independent tool that accesses publicly available data from ClinicalTrials.gov via its official API. It is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by the U.S. National Library of Medicine, the National Institutes of Health, or the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Data accuracy depends on what trial sponsors have submitted to the registry. For clinical, regulatory, or safety-critical decisions, always verify against the original ClinicalTrials.gov record.