Who Sponsors Clinical Trials?
Clinical trials are sponsored or funded by various kinds of organizations or individuals, including physicians, medical institutions, foundations, voluntary groups, and pharmaceutical companies, in addition to such federal agencies as the National Institutes of Health, the Department of Defense, and the Department of Veterans Affairs. Trials can occur in such varied locations as hospitals, universities, doctors’ offices, or community clinics.
Clinical trials can be sponsored by a number of different organizations: government agencies, such as the National Institutes of Health (NIH); pharmaceutical companies; individual physician-investigators; and health care institutions. The sponsor of a clinical trial funds the clinical trial and designs its protocol.
Different types of organizations or people can sponsor a clinical trial. These include doctors, hospitals, foundations, drug and other biomedical companies, and federal agencies such as the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), or the Department of Defense (DOD).
