Trials started per million people a year, 2021 to 2025
21.3
Ireland21.3
Peer median34.7
Denmark82.6
10th of 11 countries
Data deskEdition 12026 Q4
Ireland Clinical Trials Performance Index
How Ireland compares with ten European countries of similar size on starting, running and reporting clinical trials. Built from 30,943 registered trials (44,770 country records), every number traceable to the public registry.
Photo: CDC laboratory, via Unsplash
Headline figures
The gap
73
more trials a year would bring Ireland to the median
Recruiting now
230
interventional trials with an Irish site listed as recruiting on 27 October 2026
Strength
3rd
of 11 for posting results (80.1% of completed phase 2 to 4 trials)
Early-phase share
6.0%
of new trials are early phase; the Netherlands is at 14.0%
01
What the index shows
21.3
trials per million people a year, 10th of 11
Ireland started 579 interventional trials in 2021 to 2025. The peer median is 34.7, and Denmark runs 3.9 times as many per head. Only Portugal is lower.
73
more trials a year would reach the peer median
Most of the gap is in academic and hospital-led research. On industry-sponsored trials alone, Ireland is about 18 a year short.
86.9%
completed rather than stopped early, 4th of 11
Results reach ClinicalTrials.gov for 80.1% of completed phase 2 to 4 trials (3rd), but only 9.1% within 12 months of completion, the usual legal deadline.
6.0%
of new trials are early phase, joint 7th of 11
35 early-phase trials in five years, against 14.0% in the Netherlands and 12.4% in Belgium. Registration before the first patient is also low: 82.6% (9th).
02
The scorecard
Eight indicators, eleven countries. Each dot is a country; better is always to the right. Hover or tap a dot for its value.
IrelandComparison countryMedian of the 10 comparison countriesBetter →
Trials started per million people
per million a year
DKFINOSEBENLATCHPTCZ
21.3
Denmark 82.6Portugal 19.3
▼ below median10thof 11
Industry-sponsored trials per million people
per million a year
DKFINOSEBENLATCHPTCZ
12.5
Belgium 29.8Portugal 11.8
▼ below median9thof 11
Early-phase share of new trials
% of starts
DKFINOSEBENLATCHPTCZ
6.0%
Netherlands 14.0%Czechia 4.2%
▼ below median7thof 11, joint with Finland
Registered before the first patient
% of starts
DKFINOSEBENLATCHPTCZ
82.6%
Switzerland 87.9%Portugal 75.4%
▼ below median9thof 11
Completed rather than stopped early
% of closed trials
DKFINOSEBENLATCHPTCZ
86.9%
Denmark 88.6%Austria 81.8%
▲ above median4thof 11
Results posted at all
% of completed phase 2–4
DKFINOSEBENLATCHPTCZ
80.1%
Portugal 85.5%Denmark 60.4%
▲ above median3rdof 11
Results posted within 12 months
% of completed phase 2–4
DKFINOSEBENLATCHPTCZ
9.1%
Portugal 11.6%Norway 6.0%
= level with median6thof 11
Records gone stale
% of trials since 2014 · lower is better
DKFINOSEBENLATCHPTCZ
10.7%
Czechia 5.5%Denmark 12.1%
▼ below median8thof 11
Comparison countries: Denmark, Finland, Norway, Sweden, Belgium, Netherlands, Austria, Switzerland, Portugal, Czechia. Chosen as European countries of 5 to 18 million people with established clinical research systems. A trial with sites in several countries counts in each of them.
03
Activity: a gap that has not closed
Trials started per million people, by year. Ireland has been below the median of the comparison countries in every year since 2014. In 2025 Ireland started 21.9 trials per million against a median of 29.3.
Trials started per million people, 2014 to 2025
IrelandMedian of the ten comparison countries
010203040
29.3
21.9
Gap 2025: 7.4
201420152016201720182019202020212022202320242025
Interventional trials with an actual start date and at least one site in the country. Source: ClinicalTrials.gov; Eurostat population 2025.
All trials per million a year, 2021 to 2025
Industry-sponsored trials per million a year
04
The quarterly pulse
Trials that started at Irish sites each quarter since 2023. Sponsors often confirm a start date months later, so the latest two quarters will rise in the next edition.
Industry sponsoredUniversities, hospitals and networksPaler: provisional, late registrations still arriving2023 to 2025 average
02040
Average 28.0 a quarter
35
27
21
27
31
27
21
28
25
31
26
37
23
14
5
2023
Q12023
Q22023
Q32023
Q42024
Q12024
Q22024
Q32024
Q42025
Q12025
Q22025
Q32025
Q42026
Q12026
Q22026
Q3
Q12023
Q22023
Q32023
Q42024
Q12024
Q22024
Q32024
Q42025
Q12025
Q22025
Q32025
Q42026
Q12026
Q22026
Q3
05
Running and reporting trials
Ireland's record once a trial is open is better than its volume. Completion and results reporting sit at or above the middle of the group.
Completed, not stopped early
86.9%
of 726 trials that closed in 2016 to 2025.
Peer median 83.6% · 4th of 11
Results posted
80.1%
of 287 completed phase 2 to 4 trials; 9.1% within 12 months.
Peer median 74.8% · 3rd of 11
Registered before the first patient
82.6%
of trials started in 2021 to 2025.
Peer median 84.8% · 9th of 11
Why trials with Irish sites stopped early
95 terminated trials, primary completion 2016 to 2025, each reason read and grouped by hand.
Highlighted: recruitment, the reason Irish hospitals, networks and funders can act on directly.
06
Inside Ireland: where, what and who
The 579 trials that started at Irish sites in 2021 to 2025.
Hospitals and units with the most trials
Named sites only: 86.4% of trials name at least one Irish site.
Therapy areas
A trial can count in more than one area.
Industry sponsoredOther sponsors
Phase mix
Phase 3 and non-phased studies make up 82.6% of Irish trials.
- Early phase (1 and 1/2)356.0%
- Phase 25810.0%
- Phase 322038.0%
- Phase 481.4%
- Not phased (devices, procedures, behaviour)25844.6%
Run only in this country, % of new trials
Ireland38.3%
Peer median46.0%
Median trial length in months, industry phase 2 to 4
Ireland33.7
Peer median31.3
Lead sponsors
| Sponsor | Type | Trials |
|---|---|---|
| University College Dublin | Academic | 34 |
| Merck Sharp & Dohme LLC | Industry | 30 |
| University College Cork | Academic | 28 |
| Royal College of Surgeons, Ireland | Academic | 28 |
| University of Dublin, Trinity College | Academic | 22 |
| University of Limerick | Academic | 15 |
| Novo Nordisk A/S | Industry | 10 |
| Bristol-Myers Squibb | Industry | 10 |
| AstraZeneca | Industry | 9 |
| AbbVie | Industry | 9 |
07
The full table and the data
Every indicator for every country. Free to reuse under CC BY 4.0 with credit to Priya Life Science.
| Country | Trials started per million peopleper million a year | Industry-sponsored trials per million peopleper million a year | Early-phase share of new trials% of starts | Registered before the first patient% of starts | Completed rather than stopped early% of closed trials | Results posted at all% of completed phase 2–4 | Results posted within 12 months% of completed phase 2–4 | Records gone stale% of trials since 2014 | Median length, industry phase 2–4months, start to primary completion |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Denmark | 82.6 | 27.5 | 6.7% | 85.7% | 88.6% | 60.4% | 7.2% | 12.1% | 31.1 |
| Belgium | 50.9 | 29.8 | 12.4% | 83.3% | 82.0% | 76.4% | 9.3% | 9.4% | 31.4 |
| Switzerland | 41.3 | 14.9 | 8.3% | 87.9% | 83.9% | 60.7% | 7.3% | 9.2% | 33.6 |
| Norway | 36.2 | 12.0 | 5.8% | 85.2% | 87.7% | 63.0% | 6.0% | 9.7% | 33.6 |
| Netherlands | 34.8 | 17.4 | 14.0% | 84.4% | 82.1% | 70.5% | 8.1% | 10.9% | 31.2 |
| Sweden | 34.5 | 13.7 | 6.6% | 82.3% | 87.5% | 73.1% | 9.0% | 9.4% | 31.1 |
| Czechia | 29.1 | 22.7 | 4.2% | 85.6% | 82.8% | 85.0% | 9.7% | 5.5% | 29.1 |
| Austria | 27.5 | 16.9 | 7.1% | 87.3% | 81.8% | 79.0% | 9.3% | 9.2% | 32.5 |
| Finland | 24.7 | 13.0 | 6.0% | 82.9% | 84.8% | 77.1% | 9.2% | 11.2% | 28.8 |
| Ireland | 21.3 | 12.5 | 6.0% | 82.6% | 86.9% | 80.1% | 9.1% | 10.7% | 33.7 |
| Portugal | 19.3 | 11.8 | 5.9% | 75.4% | 83.2% | 85.5% | 11.6% | 10.0% | 32.9 |
08
Methodology and limits
What is counted
Every interventional study on ClinicalTrials.gov with at least one site in the country and a start date from 2014, downloaded through the registry's public API on 27 October 2026. Population is Eurostat's figure for 1 January 2025. No figure is estimated or modelled.
A start or completion date counts as having happened when the registry marks it actual. Records last updated before 2017 carry no date type; for those, a past date counts when the trial's status shows it ran.
The indicators
- Trials started per million
- Trials with an actual start date in 2021 to 2025, divided by five and by population in millions.
- Industry-sponsored trials per million
- The same, for trials whose lead sponsor is a company.
- Early-phase share
- Share of those trials registered as early phase 1, phase 1 or phase 1/2.
- Registered before the first patient
- Share first submitted to the registry in or before the month the trial started.
- Completed rather than stopped early
- Of trials with an actual primary completion in 2016 to 2025 that are now completed or terminated, the share completed.
- Results posted
- Of completed phase 2, 3 and 4 trials with primary completion in 2016 to 2024, the share with results on ClinicalTrials.gov at all, and within 365 days.
- Records gone stale
- Share of trials started since 2014 whose status is Unknown: the registry's label for a trial still listed as open whose status has not been verified for more than two years past its expected completion date.
Limits to keep in mind
- One registry only. Trials registered only in the EU Clinical Trials Information System or EudraCT are not counted, and results posted only to EU registers are not seen. This affects every country, but not equally.
- A multinational trial counts in every country where it has a site. The index measures participation, not where a trial is led.
- Dates, phases and sponsor types are as sponsors registered them. Recent quarters are provisional because start dates are often confirmed late.
- Hospital names are matched across spellings; sites listed only as "Research Site" cannot be attributed.
- Reasons for stopping were read one by one and grouped by hand; the grouping is ours, not the sponsor's.
Process
The scripts that download, count and draw this edition, and the hand-review of stopping reasons, are published with the data. Each figure was produced by code, reviewed, verified and approved by a human editor. Before publication every figure was recomputed by separately written code and key counts were re-queried from the live registry; the quality-check report is published with the data. Errors are fixed openly on our corrections page.
09
Cite and reuse
Free to reuse under CC BY 4.0. Credit Priya Life Science and name the edition, so readers can find the exact figures you used.
Priya Life Science. (2026). Ireland Clinical Trials Performance Index (Edition 1, 2026 Q4) [Data set]. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23725680
Priya Life Science (2026) Ireland Clinical Trials Performance Index, edition 1 (2026 Q4) [Dataset]. doi:10.5281/zenodo.23725680. Available at: https://priyalifescience.com/trials-index (Accessed: 28 October 2026).
Priya Life Science. Ireland Clinical Trials Performance Index, edition 1 (2026 Q4) [dataset on the Internet]. Priya Life Science; 2026 [cited 2026-10-28]. Available from: https://priyalifescience.com/trials-index doi:10.5281/zenodo.23725680
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author = {{Priya Life Science}},
title = {Ireland Clinical Trials Performance Index, edition 1 (2026 Q4)},
year = {2026},
howpublished = {\url{https://priyalifescience.com/trials-index}},
doi = {10.5281/zenodo.23725680},
note = {Data set. Licence CC BY 4.0. Published 2026-10-28}
}
TY - DATA AU - Priya Life Science TI - Ireland Clinical Trials Performance Index, edition 1 (2026 Q4) PY - 2026 DA - 2026/10/28 PB - Priya Life Science UR - https://priyalifescience.com/trials-index DO - 10.5281/zenodo.23725680 N1 - Licence CC BY 4.0 ER -
Credit line for charts and articles
Source: Priya Life Science, Ireland Clinical Trials Performance Index, 2026 Q4 (CC BY 4.0)
Reference manager files: citation.bib · citation.ris
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