Cytel Blog

Methods involving Group Sequential Designs is one of the earliest deviations from a traditional two-arm clinical trial with no interim looks at the data. They add incredible value to trials through their abilities to safeguard patients, reach positive conclusions early and keep trial designs simple and streamlined.

Sequential trials also help reduce costs and the number of patients involved, but finding a positive conclusion earlier is quite important too. In the drug development process, where patent lifetime is limited, reaching a decision six months or a year earlier is a big advantage. Sample Size Re-estimation is another key tool in the modern trial designer’s toolkit that proves to be useful. Continue reading this blog to learn how to use these methods and understand how they can improve trial design.

Cytel has recently designed and implemented the TOGETHER Trials, funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to generate knowledge to help fight COVID-19, particularly in low and middle-income countries. The trials, with sites in Brazil and South Africa, test three existing interventions as possible treatments for COVID-19 in high-risk adults who do not require hospitalization, compared to a placebo.

The TOGETHER trials use an adaptive platform design. This type of design is particularly useful for contexts such as COVID-19 response, where there are many unknowns and a need for accelerated and resource-efficient answers, for 5 reasons.

Bjoern Bornkamp, Statistical Methodologist at Novartis and Jose Pinheiro, Senior Director, Johnson & Johnson provided their insights on adaptive designs for dose finding in Cytel’s latest webinar. The webinar demonstrates how adaptive and Bayesian techniques can be implemented for optimal dose-finding.

This two-part blog series provides a summary of the webinar. Read the first part to get key highlights from the presentation by Jose Pinheiro on the need to conduct dose finding Phase 2 studies, dose selection comparisons and the use of MCP-Mod for dose finding. 

Continue reading this second part to learn about the methods of adaptive dose-finding, presented by Bjoern. Click the button to access the webinar recording and download the presentation slides

Bjoern Bornkamp, Statistical Methodologist at Novartis and Jose Pinheiro, Senior Director, Johnson & Johnson provided their insights on adaptive designs for dose finding in Cytel’s latest webinar. Finding the right dose in Phase 2 gives a potential new therapy its best chance to demonstrate efficacy during Phase 3. A well-executed dose-ranging trial therefore has the potential to alter the course of the entire clinical development program. This webinar demonstrates how adaptive and Bayesian techniques can be implemented for optimal dose-finding.

This two-part blog series will provide a summary of the webinar. In this first part, get key highlights from the presentation by Jose Pinheiro on the need to conduct dose finding Phase 2 studies, dose selection comparisons and the use of MCP-Mod for dose finding. Click the button to access the webinar recording and download the presentation slides

Cytel is conducting a webinar series on complex innovative trial designs. Dr. Thomas Burnett, Senior Research Associate in Medical and Pharmaceutical Statistics at Lancaster University, joined us as the presenter in the latest webinar from this series. In this webinar, “Adaptive Enrichment Designs in Clinical Development”, Dr. Burnett provides us a brief introduction to population enrichment and explains where it fits in clinical trials. He offers his insights on the topics of hypothesis testing and decision making, which is a key component of adaptive designs. You can also learn about a real-world case study (TAPPAS Trial) where this approach was used. Continue reading this blog for highlights from the webinar.

Watch the webinar recording and download the slides by clicking the button.

Read an interview with Dr. Thomas Burnett on adaptive enrichment.

Cytel is conducting a webinar series that introduces biostatisticians to some of the more commonly used complex innovative trial designs. Our second webinar from this series was held on June 3, 2020, with Professor Christopher Jennison. Professor Jennison spoke about the modern uses of Group Sequential Designs and Sample Size Re-estimation. Group Sequential Designs were one of the earliest deviations from a traditional two-arm clinical trial with no interim looks at the data. They still add amazing value to trials through their abilities to safeguard patients, reach positive conclusions early and keep trial designs simple and streamlined. Sample Size Re-estimation is another key tool in the modern trial designer’s toolkit.

Cytel also did an interview with Professor Jennison where he spoke to us about these methods, their origin and how they add value to the industry. Continue reading this blog for a summary of the webinar. Click on the button below to access the webinar replay and download the presentation slides.

In this blog, we speak with Christopher Jennison, Professor of Statistics at the University of Bath, UK. Professor Jennison provides us insights on group sequential methods, the origin of their implementation and the value they have been adding over the years.

Cytel is hosting a new webinar series that introduces clinical fellows, early career biostatisticians, and others interested in clinical research, to some of the more commonly used complex innovative trial designs. In our previous blog, we spoke with Zoran Antonijevic about adaptive design methods.

Join us for a complimentary webinar on June 3, 2020 where Professor Jennison is going to introduce us to the basics of group sequential designs and sample size re-estimation. Learn how to use these methods and understand how they can improve trial design.

The Cytel Trial Design Innovations (CTDI) Webinar Series recently hosted a webinar on designing event-based studies. Such studies are essential to designing high-efficiency clinical trials in certain therapeutic areas, but they add a number of challenges to the already complex landscape of adaptive trials.

The webinar was held on January 23rd, featuring Biostatistician and pioneering Bayesian trial-designer Pantelis Vlachos. We had the opportunity to sit down with Dr. Vlachos and speak about innovative trial designs and their benefits, adaptations and interim looks in oncology and cardiovascular, the challenges of designing event-based studies more generally, and how Cytel’s array of software tools, particularly East^®, has enabled trial sponsors to fully consider their options in the design of high-efficiency clinical trials.

PhUSE 2017 took place in Scotland’s capital city Edinburgh, 8th - 11th October, and brought together a range of experts to tackle the most pressing issues facing statistical programmers today.  We found this year's event informative and well attended. In this blog we share some highlights from the sessions and posters the Cytel team attended.  We will share Cytel's own contributions in a separate article.