Topic
Cancer clinical trial access in India
India registers its clinical trials with CTRI, and for most patients the route into a study starts at a tertiary cancer centre rather than with the sponsor. These guides walk through how trials in breast and lung cancer are actually found, and who decides whether a patient is eligible. They also set out which costs a sponsor carries under the 2019 New Drugs and Clinical Trials Rules, and which ones stay with the patient.
The guides
Clinical Trial Access for Advanced Breast Cancer in India
There is no single service in India that matches a patient to a breast cancer trial. Access runs through several separate routes: two free public registries you can search yourself (CTRI, maintained by ICMR, and ClinicalTrials.gov), the National Cancer Grid's 300-plus member centres and its 11-site trial network led by Tata Memorial Centre, the trial units at the large centres, remote tumour board opinion services, and genomic testing that opens biomarker-defined protocols. Every route needs a clinician to read your file, so the practical first step is to search the registries, note the protocol numbers, confirm an Indian site is actually recruiting, and take that shortlist to your oncologist with the question of what rules you out.
Prices and specifications checked 2026-11-06
Lung Cancer Clinical Trials in India: Access, Eligibility and Cost
Access runs through CTRI, India's statutory registry hosted by ICMR's National Institute for Research in Digital Health, plus globally sponsored phase III studies with Indian sites and investigator-initiated studies at the large academic centres. The large American master protocols are not an option: Lung-MAP runs in the United States and Canada, and its S1900K substudy is listed for US institutions only. Molecular results decide which protocols can assess you at all, since a tumour with an EGFR mutation, an ALK or ROS1 fusion, a MET exon 14 skipping alteration or a KRAS G12C mutation opens a different set from one with no driver, and progression on a targeted drug opens a different set again. Ask your treating team which tests are indicated and whether a trial would perform them during screening, rather than assuming you must buy a panel before making any enquiry.
Prices and specifications checked 2026-11-06