Demographic Analysis of Industry-Sponsored Alzheimer’s Disease Trial Populations in the United States

The Food and Drug Administration has that “sponsors should enroll participants who reflect the characteristics of clinically relevant populations”. Recent reports have noted that global Alzheimer’s Disease trials have enrolled predominantly White subjects. However, a thorough analysis of industry-sponsored, United States-only Alzheimer’s trials has yet to be performed. A search of the clinicaltrials.gov database and PubMed identified 101 industry-sponsored Alzheimer’s trials, performed solely in the United States, with gender data. The percentage of male (46%) vs. female (54%) subjects was higher than expected compared to real-world data. There were 50 Alzheimer’s trials with race data. There was a significant overrepresentation of White subjects (92%) compared to all other race groups. These data suggest that significant modifications of subject recruitment methods are needed to increase the enrollment of underrepresented populations into Alzheimer’s trials of potential new therapeutic agents in the United States.