On 26 April 2023, the European Commission (EC) proposed reforming the European Union (EU) pharmaceutical legislation. This revision constitutes the first major overhaul of the pharmaceutical legislation since 2004. It will adapt the legislation to the needs of the 21st century.
Did you know that insufficient enrollment is the leading cause for clinical trials being halted? Study sponsors rightly embrace those sites which are high performing as they give a study the best opportunity to meet its enrollment targets. However, is it possible for there to be overreliance on these high enrolling sites? Unfortunately, the answer is yes.
Innovation in early-stage studies presents the best opportunity to streamline the drug development process. Such designs may not only reduce costs and accelerate timelines but give us better flexibility to address the questions of interest in an increasingly evolving clinical development landscape.
When running a randomized clinical trial, if there are factors which are known during the study design phase to influence study results, it may be advantageous to utilize a stratified randomization which ensures each prognostic factor is balanced between treatment arms.
The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recently finalized a guidance document outlining the agency’s thinking on Submitting Clinical Trial Datasets and Documentation for Clinical Outcome Assessments Using Item Response Theory. The guidance lays out technical specifications to consider when submitting clinical outcome assessment (COA) information that uses Item Response Theory (IRT) in a marketing application.
Since the introduction of estimands, the answer to “Why are estimands necessary?” has remained constant – to allow for clearer communication about benefits/risks of a potential treatment to the relevant stakeholders. However, as illustrated in this blog, the number of questions as to how & when to use them has grown considerably.
When analyzing overall survival in a post-hoc manner sponsors need to carefully consider the types of analyses to present and have a thorough understanding of both the regulatory precedent and market landscape which their product will enter.
Overall survival (OS) is both an important efficacy & safety endpoint for oncology trials. Often when study results are submitted for regulatory consideration, OS results are often “immature”/still in their early stages which makes them difficult to evaluate. Understanding how to place these results into a proper benefit-risk framework for consideration is therefore important when assessing a potential treatment’s viability.
