WhichTrial Monthly Report · Issue 3
The US Clinical Trial Recruiting Pipeline
June 2026 → July 2026 — one month of movement, and a continuity check on the drugs we've been tracking.
Published July 16, 2026 · Data through 2026-07 · By WhichTrial
The numbers at a glance
12,095
drugs in active recruiting trials (July 2026)
30,666
recruiting trials across 17 conditions
480
drugs exited recruiting since June
559
drugs entered recruiting since June
One month of change. The recruiting pipeline grew by 79 drugs on net. 335 drugs picked up additional recruiting trials, 322 lost ground but kept at least one open study, and 10,879 held flat. As with any single-month window the individual moves are small, so alongside the tables this issue runs a continuity check on the drugs we've tracked since Issue 2.
Top gainers
Drugs that added the most recruiting trials between June and July. Over a single month the moves at the top of this list are small by nature — a few trials each. The continuity check below tests the drugs we've been tracking against the fresh data.
| Drug | Jun | Jul | Δ trials | Sponsors |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Docetaxel | 141 | 147 | +6 | 106 |
| Adebrelimab | 39 | 44 | +5 | 33 |
| Ivonescimab | 30 | 35 | +5 | 23 |
| Midazolam | 10 | 15 | +5 | 13 |
| Placebo Administration | 25 | 29 | +4 | 15 |
| Semaglutide | 25 | 29 | +4 | 23 |
| Teclistamab | 21 | 25 | +4 | 20 |
| Elecoglipron | 1 | 5 | +4 | 1 |
| Cetuximab | 76 | 79 | +3 | 53 |
| Methotrexate | 70 | 73 | +3 | 49 |
| Ruxolitinib | 33 | 36 | +3 | 26 |
| mFOLFIRINOX | 14 | 17 | +3 | 17 |
| Aspirin | 14 | 17 | +3 | 17 |
| Lurbinectedin | 12 | 15 | +3 | 15 |
| Ublituximab | 6 | 9 | +3 | 6 |
Top losers
Drugs that lost the most recruiting trials but still have at least one study open. A drop here means trials have moved out of the recruiting phase — either they completed enrollment, were terminated, or moved to active-not-recruiting status. Pembrolizumab's continued slide (see below) shows up here again.
| Drug | Jun | Jul | Δ trials | Sponsors |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pembrolizumab | 425 | 412 | -13 | 225 |
| Gemcitabine | 183 | 176 | -7 | 116 |
| Olaparib | 62 | 55 | -7 | 41 |
| Nivolumab | 169 | 163 | -6 | 97 |
| Rituximab | 136 | 130 | -6 | 81 |
| Fulvestrant | 67 | 61 | -6 | 44 |
| Cisplatin | 255 | 250 | -5 | 153 |
| Nab paclitaxel | 121 | 116 | -5 | 77 |
| Metformin | 54 | 49 | -5 | 44 |
| Cyclophosphamide | 347 | 343 | -4 | 146 |
| Durvalumab | 118 | 114 | -4 | 79 |
| Obinutuzumab: | 57 | 53 | -4 | 32 |
| Venetoclax | 182 | 179 | -3 | 97 |
| Etoposide | 95 | 92 | -3 | 70 |
| Cemiplimab | 70 | 67 | -3 | 38 |
Spotlight · Continuity check
The drugs we've been tracking, one month on
Issue 2's GLP-1 call holds, with a caveat. Semaglutide added four recruiting trials (25 to 29) and picked up two sponsors and two more conditions, the clearest expansion in the group. Tirzepatide barely moved, up one trial and one sponsor. Retatrutide went the other way, falling from three trials to two and from seven conditions to five, still on a single sponsor. The class is growing on the back of its two leaders rather than broadening out.
The Keytruda call played out again, and the shape of it matters more than the headline. Pembrolizumab lost 13 recruiting trials (425 to 412), but its sponsor and condition counts fell harder: 236 sponsors down to 225, and 820 conditions down to 790. Fewer organizations are running it against a narrower set of indications, which is a wider retreat than the trial count alone suggests. Nivolumab shows the same pattern at smaller scale, down six trials and eight sponsors. This does not look like one program winding down. The PD-1 backbone is contracting across the board.
The TROP2 ADC watch is the quiet one. Sacituzumab tirumotecan sat perfectly still at 22 trials, 5 sponsors and 31 conditions, unchanged from June in every column. For a drug we flagged as one to watch, a month of zero movement in either direction is its own kind of signal. Toripalimab kept up its slow climb, adding a trial, a sponsor and three conditions.
| Drug | Trials (Jun → Jul) | Sponsors (Jun → Jul) |
|---|---|---|
| TirzepatideJune Issue 2 spotlight (GLP-1 call) | 36 → 37 (+1) | 32 → 33 |
| SemaglutideJune spotlight; recurring GLP-1 class leader | 25 → 29 (+4) | 21 → 23 |
| Retatrutiderecurring GLP-1/triple-agonist class leader | 3 → 2 (-1) | 1 → 1 |
| PembrolizumabJune spotlight (highlighted loser / Keytruda call); recurring PD-1 leader | 425 → 412 (-13) | 236 → 225 |
| Nivolumabrecurring PD-1 class leader | 169 → 163 (-6) | 105 → 97 |
| Sacituzumab tirumotecanJune spotlight (TROP2 ADC watch) | 22 → 22 (0) | 5 → 5 |
| ToripalimabJune spotlight (China PD-1) | 84 → 85 (+1) | 47 → 48 |
Drugs that left recruiting
480 drugs that had at least one recruiting trial in June no longer do in July. Over a one-month window these are typically long-tail compounds with one or two trials that wrapped enrollment.
New entrants
559 drugs began recruiting between June and July that hadn't previously appeared in our snapshot. As usual, most are early-phase, single-sponsor studies — first signals of new programs.
About this report
Data source. All figures are derived from the public ClinicalTrials.gov registry, queried monthly. We track US-based recruiting trials across 17 condition categories and ~50 metro areas.
A note on the window. This issue compares consecutive months (June → July), the same one-month cadence as Issue 2. Deltas over a single month are naturally smaller than the two-month window Issue 1 covered — read the magnitudes here against that shorter window.
What “recruiting” means. A trial is recruiting when ClinicalTrials.gov flags its overall status as RECRUITING. When a trial no longer appears in our monthly fetch, we mark it as “not recruiting” — it may have completed enrollment, been suspended, terminated, or moved to active-not-recruiting status. We don't distinguish between those states in the aggregates above.
What “exited” means. A drug exited recruiting if it had at least one trial flagged RECRUITING in June 2026 and has zero such trials in July 2026. The drug itself isn't gone — its open trial pipeline is.
Limitations. Our extraction filters out generic terms (placebo, chemotherapy, radiation, saline) and intervention names longer than 60 characters, so very long trial-arm descriptions aren't counted as drugs. Some drugs appear under multiple aliases; we deduplicate where we can.