I keep checking ClinicalTrials for semaglutide studies and one pattern is bugging me. NCT07011667 is active, not recruiting and lists 609 enrolled.
Meanwhile NCT07401992 is recruiting with 62, NCT06897475 recruiting with 200, and NCT06989203 recruiting with 140. Is that just site count/timeline, or are some designs easier to fill?
I’m not in any of these, just trying to understand how these numbers move. Anyone else watching trial enrollment as a signal?
Could be. I’d rather see results than enrollment counts. None of these have headline data posted yet.
Then why is NCT06989203 sitting at 140 and still recruiting? Maybe they need specific subgroups.
Active, not recruiting means done enrolling. 609 is likely final.
Agree on lag, but 609 still stands out. Is NCT07011667 done enrolling, or just paused?
Registries lag. I wouldn’t read too much into exact numbers week to week.
Then why is NCT06897475 at 200 and still recruiting?
I’ve seen clinics push studies when they need a very specific group. Could explain NCT07401992 at 62.
Right, and NCT07011667 at 609 could be many countries. The recruiting ones may be narrower or slower sites.
Without results, that 30-person completed study doesn’t tell us much.
Site count and inclusion criteria explain a lot. NCT02079870 completed with 30 is a different animal.
609 doesn’t surprise me if it’s multi-site. Active, not recruiting usually means enrollment closed.
609 across tons of sites can still take years; 62 at one clinic can fill faster if the target is narrow.
I’ve watched trial listings for months and the number that matters is screens vs enrolled vs sites. A 609-person study might have 70 sites and a huge pool; a 62-person one can have a strict washout, 2:1 placebo, or require no prior GLP-1 for 6 months, so it trickles.
Another surprise: bigger studies often close enrollment early when interim data hits, so 'active, not recruiting' isn't always full.
Honestly the 62-person one would scare me more—harder to hit target, more screen fails, longer sit.
I’d bet site count explains it; four clinics can’t recruit like fifty, no matter how easy the design looks.
The number that never shows up on those listings is how many people got screened and bounced. I went through screening for one last year and the coordinator said they budget roughly 4 screens for every 1 person enrolled, so a study sitting at 62 might have already churned through 250+ phone screens and still be behind.
The big driver is washout: if a protocol makes you stop any GLP-1 for 90 days plus a two-week run-in, you lose a chunk of exactly the population that's motivated to sign up. And "active, not recruiting" usually just means they hit their target and moved everyone into the treatment/follow-up phase, not that the whole thing is wrapping.
So 609 is often a closed door, not a finish line.
Registration number is basically a timestamp. NCT0701... is older than NCT0740..., so the recruiting ones are just younger listings that haven't had time to fill.
A trial posted four months ago sitting at 62 is a totally different situation from one that's been up two years at 609. Check the first-posted date on each record before you compare headcounts.
Some of these are just newer listings with a shorter runway. Recruiting status is a clock, not a verdict.
Going the other way: a big headcount isn't automatically the better-designed study, it often just means the protocol is broader.
I compared two listings last spring and the 600-person one had looser criteria (wider BMI range, no requirement to have failed anything first) while the 140-person one wanted a specific history plus a 12-week washout. Guess which filled faster.
People also underestimate the dropout cushion, sponsors enroll well past the stated target to cover the folks who vanish around week 20. And visit burden is a filter nobody talks about: one of the bigger studies I read had 14 visits over 68 weeks, six of them in-clinic. That's a lot of Tuesdays off work.
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