Clinical Trials Watch2026-W21May 18, 2026

Clinical Trials Watch — 2026-05-18

TITLE: Clinical Trials Watch — Week of May 18, 2026: Early-phase oncology device, GLP-1 in CF, and an ecopipam expanded-access window

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Editor's Take

A quiet week on the readout front — no Phase III data drops and no terminations to flag — but the activity list skews toward mechanism-of-disease and bioavailability work, with one notable expanded-access program opening for a CNS asset. Industry sponsors are thin; academic centers and NIH institutes dominate.

Phase I / Early Phase

NCT06204614 (Brigham and Women's, early Phase 1, enrolling by invitation) is testing an implantable microdevice for in-situ drug screening in muscle-invasive bladder urothelial carcinoma; primary endpoint is safety of placement/removal in 18 patients — a platform play worth tracking if signal translates beyond glioma.
NCT07220954 (AstraZeneca, Phase 1, recruiting) compares subcutaneous formulations of AZD6234 in 21 healthy volunteers on Cmax — formulation work consistent with AZ pushing its early metabolic/obesity pipeline toward a pen-friendly profile.

Phase II

NCT04731272 (University of Pennsylvania, recruiting, n=30) is evaluating GLP-1 agonist therapy in cystic fibrosis–related glucose intolerance with early-phase insulin secretion as the primary endpoint — a small but mechanistically interesting extension of incretin biology into CFRD, where insulin remains standard of care.

Phase III

No new Phase III readouts, initiations, or terminations among this week's active records.

Phase IV / Real-World & Registries

NCT06919562 (Albert Schweitzer Ziekenhuis, Netherlands; recruiting, n=117) is a PCI registry assessing technical success of thinner-strut bioresorbable scaffolds deployed under intracoronary imaging guidance — a useful real-world dataset given the troubled history of BRS in coronary disease.

Expanded Access

NCT07093541 — Emalex Biosciences has opened an expanded access program for ecopipam in Tourette's disorder, signaling continued late-stage commitment to the D1 antagonist ahead of any potential filing.

Mechanistic, Observational & Behavioral

NCT04685200 (NIDDK, recruiting, n=143) continues multidisciplinary pathogenesis work in primary sclerosing cholangitis — an area starved of approved therapies and where deep phenotyping cohorts feed the next wave of targeted trials.
NCT06948058 (Brown University, n=60) is a behavioral study pairing e-cigarettes with nicotine replacement for smoking cessation in patients with obesity/obesity-related conditions, with cigarettes-per-day as the primary readout.
NCT07544498 (Medical University of Graz, not yet recruiting, n=232) will test an XR-based resilience intervention against PSS-10 stress scores in healthcare workers — part of the growing pipeline of digital-therapeutic-adjacent occupational health studies.
Two completed academic studies round out the week: NCT01766271 (Duke, n=31) on genetic-risk-informed health coaching for CHD risk, and NCT07593599 (Green International University, n=84) comparing an injury-management protocol to targeted exercise in grade II knee osteoarthritis — both small, hypothesis-generating, and unlikely to move practice on their own.

Bottom Line

Nothing in this week's slate moves a stock or a guideline. The items worth bookmarking are the Penn GLP-1/CFRD Phase II (NCT04731272) for proof-of-concept in a new incretin indication, the Brigham bladder microdevice (NCT06204614) as an oncology platform readthrough, and the Emalex ecopipam EAP (NCT07093541) as a late-stage commercial-readiness tell.