About TrialFinder

An independent, free service that helps US patients find recruiting clinical trials, understand who they are for, and reach the research team running them.

What TrialFinder is

TrialFinder is a search and matching service for clinical trials in the United States. It is free for patients, and no insurance is required to use it. We are not a hospital, a research site, a drug company, or a government agency, and we are not affiliated with ClinicalTrials.gov or the National Institutes of Health. We built TrialFinder because the official registry is written for researchers, and most people who could benefit from a trial never find out it exists.

The team behind TrialFinder has hands-on experience running clinical studies at research sites. That is why the service is built around what a study coordinator actually needs from a patient inquiry, and around what a patient needs to decide whether a trial is worth a phone call.

66,000+
recruiting trials in our catalogue
22,000+
of them with at least one US study site
Every 2 days
the catalogue is refreshed from ClinicalTrials.gov

Where the trial information comes from

Every trial on TrialFinder comes from ClinicalTrials.gov, the public registry maintained by the US National Library of Medicine. We import every recruiting study every two days, keep the official title, criteria, phase, sponsor, locations and contacts exactly as the sponsor registered them, and link every page back to its NCT number. We never add trials that are not in the registry and we never change a trial's eligibility criteria.

What we add is a plain-language layer: a patient-readable title, a short summary of who the trial is looking for, and the inclusion and exclusion criteria rewritten in the first person. That layer is generated by an AI language model from the registry text and is labelled as such wherever it appears. The official criteria are always on the same page, and only the research team can confirm whether you qualify.

How matching and the pre-screen work

1

Search by condition and place

Trials are matched on the conditions the sponsor registered and ranked by how close their study sites are to you. No account is needed to search.

2

A three-question pre-screen

For any trial, you can answer three short questions written from that trial's own criteria. They only ask things you already know about yourself, never lab values or test results. The result is "likely", "might" or "will not" qualify, with a reason in plain English. It is a filter, not a diagnosis, and the study team makes the real eligibility decision during screening.

3

A referral you control

If the pre-screen does not rule you out, you can ask us to introduce you to the trial's nearest listed study contact. Nothing is sent until you review exactly what will be shared and confirm it. You receive a copy, and the site can tell us what happened so we can improve matching.

How we make money

TrialFinder is free for patients and always will be. Research sites and study sponsors can pay to partner with us. A partner site's trials are labelled Partner Site, are shown first when they are within your search radius, and inquiries for them are routed to the partner's own coordinator. Partner status never changes your pre-screen result, and no site is told anything about you unless you choose to contact it.

We do not run advertising, we do not sell personal information, and we do not share your health details with anyone without your explicit, per-request consent. Our Privacy Policy describes every party that receives any of your data and why.

Editorial standards

  • Trial pages are built from the registry record and show the NCT number, sponsor, phase, status and locations as registered.
  • AI-generated summaries are generated from the registry text only, are labelled on the page, and are reviewed for errors when a reader or a study team reports one.
  • Our patient guides explain how trials work in general terms. They are not medical advice and do not recommend any treatment.
  • Found a mistake? Email mail@thetrialfinder.com with the NCT number and we will correct it.

Contact

Patients, families and study teams: mail@thetrialfinder.com

Sponsors and research sites: For Sponsors & Sites

Privacy questions and data requests: see our Privacy Policy.

The information on this site does not substitute for medical advice. Talk to your healthcare provider before joining any study.