Which specific NIH-funded cancer clinical trials were canceled or delayed due to grant freezes between 2024–2025?
Executive summary
Reporting from 2024–2025 documents broad disruptions to NIH‑funded clinical research that included canceled and delayed cancer trials, but the publicly cited coverage and early studies enumerate counts and categories rather than naming individual trials—so there is no compiled list of specific cancer trials identified in these sources as canceled or delayed [1] [2] [3].
1. The scale: hundreds of trials affected, dozens tied to cancer
Multiple outlets drawing on a JAMA Internal Medicine dataset and other government analyses reported hundreds of NIH‑affected clinical trials between early 2025 and mid‑2025, with one count finding 383 disrupted trials overall and another tally noting 118 terminated trials that “studied cancer in some way” [1] [2]. Reporting summarized that roughly 74,000 patients were enrolled across disrupted trials, underscoring the magnitude though not producing a roster of trial names [4] [2].
2. How the disruption occurred: freezes, rule changes and terminated grants
The chain of events most frequently described in the reporting began with abrupt NIH policy shifts and a temporary freeze on NIH activities—meeting cancellations, grant review pauses and new rules—that delayed disbursement and review of grants and trial approvals, prompting investigators and institutions to pause or cancel trials that relied on that support [5] [6] [7]. Investigative coverage and sector groups further reported termination of large numbers of grants and a substantial reduction in obligated funds that compounded the problem [8] [9].
3. What the coverage does — and does not — name
Science and health outlets, specialty societies and watchdog reporting provided counts, institutional impacts, and programmatic examples (for instance trials spanning rare cancers, pediatric protocols and multimodality studies are cited as especially vulnerable), but none of the provided sources supply a consolidated list of specific NIH‑funded cancer clinical trials that were individually named as canceled or delayed in 2024–2025 [1] [10] [3]. Where data sources are referenced, they point readers to primary repositories such as clinicaltrials.gov and a JAMA study for granular trial‑level analysis rather than republishing trial names in news copy [1].
4. Who’s sounding the alarm — and their potential agendas
Academic societies (AACR), advocacy groups and journalists framed the story as a threat to patient access and long‑term discovery, highlighting examples of trials that are typically funded by NIH (early‑phase, rare tumors, pediatrics) and the downstream risks to patients and careers [10] [3]. Reporting from outlets critical of the administration’s policies links the funding pauses to executive actions and internal NIH rule changes; other reporting notes administrative justifications centered on oversight and policy realignment, though explicit defense statements are not excerpted in these sources [8] [11].
5. Why a named‑trial list is missing from available reporting
The public reporting relies on aggregated counts drawn from terminated grant lists, GAO analyses and clinicaltrials.gov cross‑checks; those methods yield tallies that are actionable for policy debate but require database queries or the JAMA study’s supplementary material to extract names at the trial level, and the articles summarized here did not reproduce such a trial‑by‑trial roster [1] [2] [7]. Therefore, based on the provided sources, one cannot credibly assert a definitive set of individual cancer trials canceled or delayed without returning to the primary datasets cited [1].
6. How to identify the specific trials (next investigative steps)
The reporting points investigators and journalists toward clinicaltrials.gov and the JAMA Internal Medicine dataset underlying several of these stories as the paths to extract specific trial identifiers and sponsor information; a careful cross‑match of terminated NIH grant numbers, clinicaltrials.gov NCT identifiers, and institutional notices would be required to produce an authoritative list of named cancer trials affected [1] [2]. Freedom‑of‑Information Act requests to NIH/NCI, direct inquiries to trial sponsors or academic centers, and examination of the JAMA study supplementary files are the recommended next steps for anyone seeking trial‑level confirmation [1].