The Joint Statistical Meetings (JSM) is the largest and arguably most highly respected gathering of statisticians in the world.  It will bring together over 6000 statisticians and runs from Saturday, July 29, to Thursday, August 3, 2017. With over 600 sessions,  it can be a challenge to identify the most crucial ones to attend. To help out, we've asked some of the Cytel team for their top...

Topics: biostatistics, Oncology, Clinical Research Services, Clinical Development Strategy, Adaptive Clinical Trials, Statistical Innovations in Clinical Development, Statistical Analysis, Statistical Programming

The Adaptive Designs and Multiple Testing Procedures Workshop (ADMTP), the first joint meeting of the Adaptive Designs Working Group of the MRC Hubs for Trials Methodology Research and the joint ADMTP Working Group of the International Biometrics Society German and Austro-Swiss Regions, took place in Cambridge, UK last month. 

Topics: biostatistics, adaptive designs, Clinical Data, Adaptive Clinical Trials

 By Esha Senchaudhuri

The ethical benefits of adaptive clinical trials have been widely acclaimed: higher prospects for patients to be enrolled into the correct trial arm [1]; shorter trials for the most effective new therapies (see the early stopping outcome of the MUSEC trial) [2]; and enrollments commensurate with the needs of research, i.e. the last patient enrolled is not superfluous to a...

Topics: biostatistics, Regulation, patient enrollment, Adaptive Clinical Trials, medical ethics

Since 2011 we have been celebrating Cytel's birthdays by holding an East Annual Symposium and User Group Meeting ( EUGM), alternating locations between Europe and the United States. Our keynote speakers have featured some of the industry's most eminent biostatistics thought leaders including Stuart Pocock, Dave DeMets, Chris Jennison, Sue Todd, and Franz Koenig.  Each annual event has been a...

Topics: biostatistics, adaptive designs, Adaptive Clinical Trials, East, EAST 6.4, Dose-Escalation, Multi-Arm Multi-Stage Studies

 At ASCO 2017, Cytel trial design experts joined our medical and academic colleagues to share the most recent innovations in cancer research.In this blog we will share the abstract and pdf of the poster presentation: TAPPAS: Adaptive enrichment phase 3 trial of TRC105 and pazopanib versus pazopanib alone in patients with advanced angiosarcoma (AAS), co-authored by Cytel's Cyrus Mehta and...

Topics: biostatistics, Oncology, Phase 1, Phase 3, Clinical Research Services, Clinical Development Strategy, Adaptive Clinical Trials

A number of the Cytel team were in London, 14th – 17th May 2017 for the PSI Annual conference. The PSI Conference is an important forum for statisticians and we found this year's event insightful, informative and well attended. In this blog, we'll summarize some of the particular highlights from the sessions that our team members attended.

Topics: biostatistics, adaptive designs, PSI Conference, Clinical Data, Adaptive Clinical Trials

James (Jim) Bolognese, Senior Director, Strategic Consulting, Clinical Services at Cytel Inc. was named a 2017 fellow of the American Statistical Association (ASA). Jim will be officially honored by the ASA at the Joint Statistical Meetings in Baltimore, Maryland this summer.

Topics: biostatistics, Adaptive Clinical Trials, adaptive designs, Interim Analyses, Cytel Strategic Consulting, Statistical Analysis, Clinical Development Strategy

PSI is a global member organization dedicated to leading and promoting best practice and industry initiatives for statisticians in the biopharmaceutical industry.  2017 marks a significant milestone for the organization's PSI conference as it hits its 40th year of promoting statistical insight. This is reflected in its status as the key event on the calendar for statisticians in the...

Topics: biostatistics, Adaptive Clinical Trials, adaptive designs, Interim Analyses

At a recent conference Adam Hamm, Director Biostatistics at Cytel, presented his thoughts on Best Practices and Operational Considerations for Adaptive Designs and Interim Analyses. In this blog, we share some highlights from his presentation, drawing out some of the key operational priorities from the biostatistician's point of view. 

Topics: biostatistics, Adaptive Clinical Trials, adaptive designs, Interim Analyses

In a January 2017 paper (1), the FDA reviewed 22 case studies where promising Phase 2 trials did not result in efficacy, safety or both being confirmed in a Phase 3 trial.

At the outset, the authors of the paper are careful to state that the aim is not to assess why these unexpected results occurred, but rather to demonstrate how different trials contribute to developing our scientific...

Topics: biostatistics, Adaptive Clinical Trials, adaptive designs, adaptive sample size re-estimation, Phase 3, Clinical Development Strategy

With an increasing interest in platform designs and other innovative designs that involve multiple comparisons over multiple stages, the importance of Multi-Arm Multi-Stage ( MAMS) designs is set to rise.

Topics: biostatistics, Adaptive Clinical Trials, adaptive designs, Multi-Arm Multi-Stage Studies, Multi-Arm Studies

Adaptive designs have the potential to accelerate clinical development, and improve the probability of trial success. While the principle is simple- to reduce the uncertainty in clinical development by obtaining additional information from the ongoing trial- the statistical methodologies can be complex, and expert support is often required to conduct the clinical trial design. There's also...

Topics: Clinical Development Strategy, adaptive designs, adaptive trials, Adaptive Clinical Trials, Clinical Data, data manager, Data Management, EDC

A paper "Best practices case studies for 'less well-understood' Adaptive designs", has been published by the DIA Scientific Working Group on Adaptive Designs as a twin document to the previously discussed "Challenges and Opportunities of 'Less Well Understood' Adaptive Designs".  This publication furthers understanding by reviewing 10 important case studies and sharing details on their design...

Topics: Clinical Development Strategy, adaptive designs, adaptive trials, Adaptive Clinical Trials, adaptive sample size re-estimation, Seamless designs, Rare Disease, Multi-Arm Multi-Stage Studies, Multi-Arm Studies, EAST 6.4

In order for adaptive designs to reach their potential, it’s critical that knowledge is effectively dissemirnated within the medical research community – in particular detailed information about the operating and statistical characteristics of specific designs and insights as to their benefits and limitations. 

Cytel recently announced the publication of an important article in the New England...

Topics: biostatistics, adaptive designs, Adaptive Clinical Trials, sample size re-estimation, phase 2, Phase 3, Seamless designs

Adaptive Designs in Practice: Interview with NIHR Research Fellow Munya Dimairo

NIHR and University of Sheffield researchers recently published a paper, ‘Adaptive designs undertaken in clinical research: a review of registered clinical trials’(Hatfield et al) which explores the current state of adaptive designs in practice. In this blog we catch up with Munya Dimairo, NIHR Research fellow and...

Topics: Group Sequential, Adaptive Clinical Trials, adaptive sample size re-estimation, adaptive designs, adaptive trials

FDA draft guidance on “Co development of two or more unmarketed investigational drugs for use in combination”  notes that:

“Combination therapy is an important treatment modality in many disease settings, including cancer, cardio-vascular disease, and infectious diseases. Recent scientific advances have increased our understanding of the pathophysiological processes that underlie these and...

Topics: Oncology, Phase 1, Early Phase Trials, Adaptive Clinical Trials, BLRM, Bayesian, PIPE

There has been increasing interest in  multi-arm multi-stage trials with treatment selection and sample size re-estimation at interim analysis. The East 6.4  release incorporates new Multi-Arm Multi-Stage (MAMS) module to support statisticians designing these studies.  In this blog, we take a high level look at some of the features and advantages of this approach.  

Topics: East, Adaptive Clinical Trials, Multi-Arm Studies, Multi-Arm Multi-Stage Studies, EAST 6.4

 'The aim of a discussion should not be victory but progress.'

This principle, expressed by the French essayist Joseph Joubert, applies effectively to the spirit of scientific debate. More specifically, within the clinical development space, the field of adaptive designs has seen its fair share of both discussion and progress. In this blog we’ll take a look at one debated area- the efficiency...

Topics: Cyrus Mehta, Adaptive Clinical Trials, adaptive sample size re-estimation, Lingyun Liu

Topics: Adaptive Clinical Trials, Statistical Innovations in Clinical Development, pharmacometrics

Most people familiar with adaptive clinical trial designs are familiar with those statistical designs that reject the null hypothesis. These include now familiar designs like the promising zone design and the adaptive switch design. 

A newer breed of adaptive designs, however, aims to apply adaptation techniques to confidence intervals.

Topics: Cyrus Mehta, Exact Tests, Adaptive Clinical Trials