Trends of clinical trials from 2014 to 2016 in South Korea

MethodsClinical trials listed in the MFDS clinical trial registry from January 1 st , 2014 to December 31 st , 2016 were included in the analysis.Therapeutic areas were classified based on investigational product (IP) described in the study title by World Health Organization Anatomical Therapeutic Chemical (WHO-ATC) Classification System.If the IP code was not specified in the database, IP code was referred to ClinicalTrials.govregistry to classify therapeutic area.When reference was not found, the trial was counted as 'Other' .When IPs of different therapeutic area co-existed in a clinical trial, therapeutic area was selected in terms of relative importance considering the number of drugs and study purpose.Study phase of '0' , '1/2a' , '1/2' , '1' , '1/3' was coded as phase 1;'2/3' , '2a' , '2b' , '2' , '2b/3' was coded as phase 2; '3a' , '3b' , '3' , '3/4' was coded as phase 3; trials other than phase 1 to 4 and investigator-Reviewer This article reviewed by peer experts who are not TCP editors. Trends of clinical trials from 2014 to 2016 in South Korea