How to Find an Immunotherapy Clinical Trial in India — A Step-by-Step Registry Walkthrough

Two matter most, and both are free. The Clinical Trials Registry – India (CTRI), run by ICMR’s National Institute of Medical Statistics, must list every trial run in India before its first participant is enrolled. ClinicalTrials.gov lists global studies, many with Indian sites. The WHO ICTRP portal searches several registers at once.

These are public databases. You do not need a login, a referral or anyone’s permission to open them, and there is no fee. That single fact is the reason this page exists: families are routinely told a trial “might be an option somewhere” and are then left with no idea how to look. You can look. What follows is the actual walkthrough, in the order a real search happens.

Registry entries describe studies. They are not advertisements, they are not offers, and an entry existing does not mean a place exists for you. This page is information only — nothing here recruits anyone into a study, and no benefit is claimed for any investigational treatment.

Search by your condition, not by a drug name. Open CTRI, type one plain word from your histopathology report, and read the results. Repeat on ClinicalTrials.gov with the country set to India. Then read each study’s eligibility criteria against your own reports before you telephone anyone.

1. 1

   Write your diagnosis down in the registry’s words

   Copy the histology exactly as the histopathology report states it, plus the stage and any biomarker result you have — PD-L1, MSI or dMMR, TMB. Registries index those words, not the everyday name of the disease.

2. 2

   Start on CTRI, one keyword at a time

   Free-text matching is literal. A long phrase may return nothing while the single word “lung” returns everything you need. Try the organ word, then the histology word, then “immunotherapy”, as separate searches.

3. 3

   Repeat on ClinicalTrials.gov with India as the country

   Set the condition, set the country filter to India, set status to recruiting. International studies with Indian sites usually surface here rather than on a first CTRI search.

4. 4

   Filter by city before you get attached to a study

   The protocol’s visit calendar is compulsory and it happens at the trial site. A study in another state is a repeated travel commitment for the whole family, so filter early rather than late.

5. 5

   Read the inclusion and exclusion criteria line by line

   Sit with your reports open beside the screen. Cancer type, stage, prior treatment lines, blood counts, liver and kidney values and performance status all have to sit inside the protocol. Most mismatches are visible here, before a single phone call.

6. 6

   Note the identifiers for every study still in the running

   Write down the CTRI number or NCT number, the phase, the sponsor, the site name and city, the principal investigator, and the coordinator’s phone number and email. That shortlist is what you take to your oncologist.

7. 7

   Call the site study coordinator, not the sponsor

   Ask four questions. Is this site still recruiting? Do I look eligible on paper? What does screening involve, and how long does it take? What would my family pay for, and what does the study pay for?

8. 8

   Take the shortlist back to your treating oncologist

   A study you fit on paper may still be the wrong treatment for you now. Your oncologist can say so, and can write the referral note and case summary the study team will ask for.

Allow an evening for the first pass and about a week for the phone calls. Registry records are updated by study teams, so a listing marked “recruiting” may already be full — only the site can confirm that. Keep your existing treatment plan running while you look.

Four people are genuinely useful: your treating oncologist, the study coordinator named in the registry entry, the clinical research office of a large cancer centre, and a patient support organisation. Nobody should charge you a fee to be found a place on a study. That is not how trials work in India.

• Your treating oncologist — the first call, always. Whether a trial is clinically reasonable depends on your histology, your prior lines of treatment and your organ function, and they already have all three. Say out loud that you want to consider a trial; it is a legitimate clinical request, not a complaint about your care.
• The site study coordinator — named in the registry entry. They are the only person who knows whether recruitment is still open at that site, what screening involves, and how long the process takes.
• The clinical research office at a large cancer centre — most academic and tertiary centres have one, and it will usually answer questions about its own studies even if you are not registered there.
• Patient support and advocacy organisations — useful for the searching itself, for understanding what a consent document is saying, and for talking to families who have already been through screening.
• A second opinion — worth having specifically to test whether a trial is a sensible option at all, and to hear it plainly if it is not. A trial is a clinical decision with a cost consequence, not a cost decision with a clinical consequence.
• Not an agent or a middleman — if anyone asks for money to reserve a slot, to “fast-track” screening, or to arrange an investigational drug outside a registered study, stop there. Enrolment cannot be bought.

One folder, six documents. The histopathology report, any biomarker report, the most recent scans and their reports, recent blood work, a dated list of every treatment already given, and a short case summary from your oncologist. Coordinators screen on paper first, and an incomplete folder costs weeks.

• The histopathology report — the exact histology and, where relevant, the subtype. Studies are written around this wording, not around the everyday name of the cancer.
• Biomarker reports — PD-L1 with the TPS or CPS score, MSI or mismatch-repair status, TMB, and any molecular panel. Note the date and the block the test was run on; some protocols require tissue of a stated age.
• Imaging and reports — the most recent CT, MRI or PET-CT with the radiologist’s report, and ideally the images themselves on a disc or link. Response-assessment PET-CT is coordinated at partner imaging centres, so ask for your copy at the time of the scan.
• Recent blood work — counts, liver and kidney function, and thyroid where it has been checked. Eligibility thresholds are numeric and are read off recent values.
• A dated treatment history — every drug, every line, start and stop dates, and the reason each was stopped. “One line too many” closes more doors than any other single factor.
• A one-page summary from your oncologist — performance status, comorbidities, current medicines including any steroid dose, and the current plan. This is what a coordinator actually reads first.

Nine fields carry almost all the meaning. Registration number, public title, phase, recruitment status, sponsor, sites, inclusion criteria, exclusion criteria and the intervention. Read those nine, in that order, and skip the rest on a first pass. The scientific title is written for regulators, not for families.

The entry describes a plan for a study. It does not tell you whether a slot exists, whether you would be accepted, or what a place would cost your family. Those three answers come only from the site study team, and the money answer belongs in writing — see Is Treatment Free in a Clinical Trial? for what sponsors typically pay for and what usually stays on your bill. Indicative, as of August 2026.

Ask for four things in writing: the registration number, the name of the registered ethics committee, the informed consent document in a language you understand, and an itemised statement of who pays for what. If any of the four cannot be produced, that is your answer.

What a genuine study can always show you

• A registration number you can verify yourself — a CTRI number or an NCT number that resolves to a real entry describing the study you were told about.
• Ethics committee clearance — a named, registered ethics committee. Under the New Drugs and Clinical Trials Rules, 2019, a trial of a new drug also needs CDSCO permission.
• Written informed consent in your language — which you may take home, read, and discuss before signing. Nobody may rush you.
• A clear statement of your right to withdraw — at any time, for any reason, without losing your right to standard treatment at that centre.
• An itemised cost split — what the sponsor pays for, what remains yours, and what happens after the study ends. Indicative, as of August 2026, and it must be in writing.

When to stop and walk away

• You are asked to pay a fee to be enrolled — or to pay someone to “arrange” a slot. Enrolment is not for sale.
• No registration number exists — or the number given does not match the study being described.
• You are promised a certain outcome — no legitimate study promises a result. The whole reason a study runs is that the answer is not yet known.
• You are pressured to stop your current treatment immediately — a proper discussion involves your treating oncologist and a plan for the gap.
• Consent is verbal, hurried, or in a language you do not read — that is not informed consent.
• An investigational drug is offered outside a registered study — that is not a trial, whatever it is called.

Three questions come up immediately after the search: what a trial actually costs your family, whether you might receive a placebo, and what the phase number means. Each has its own page, and it is worth reading all three before you telephone a study coordinator.

• Is Treatment Free in a Clinical Trial? — the sponsor usually supplies the investigational drug and the protocol-only tests, while day care, routine monitoring, travel and stay commonly remain with the family. Read this before you build a budget around the trial route.
• Will I Get a Placebo in a Cancer Trial? — the question families ask most, and the one that decides whether the trial route feels acceptable. Randomisation, blinding and what a comparator arm actually receives, explained plainly.
• Trial Phases Explained: Phase 1, 2 and 3 — the phase in a registry entry tells you what question the study is asking and how much is already known. Read this before you decide which entries on your shortlist are worth a phone call.
• Immunotherapy at CION Cancer Clinics — what approved immunotherapy involves, who it is and is not suitable for, and how day-care treatment is organised, so that you can compare the standard route against the trial route honestly.

Referral note: where a study is a CAR-T or other cell-therapy study, CION does not provide those therapies and the appropriate step is a referral to a centre that runs them. Nothing on this page recruits anyone into any study.

Get Your Reports Read Against Real Eligibility Criteria

Bring the histopathology, biomarker and imaging reports. We will tell you what a study team will ask for — and what would rule you out.