Adaptive clinical trial designs gaining momentum

A report has shed light on pharmaceutical companies' increasing use of adaptive trials.

Pharmaceutical companies are increasingly adopting adaptive clinical trial designs, new research has revealed.
The latest report from Industry Standard Research (ISR), entitled 'Adaptive Trial Market Dynamics', surveyed 102 pharmaceutical decision-makers

Its findings suggest that 91 per cent of organisations have experienced an increase in adaptive trials.
Andrew Schafer, president of ISR, observed that pharmaceutical companies have been forced to re-evaluate how they conduct their clinical development because of rising clinical trial costs and high failure rates at the phase-III stage.

"Pharma is looking across their entire R&D process for ways to improve outcomes and adaptive trial designs are definitely in the mix, as we've seen an increase in the adoption of adaptive trials since ISR last examined the topic in 2010," he revealed.

Mr Shafer noted that adaptive trial strategies are typically being used to speed up "go/no go decisions" and to help identify the correct doses to move forward into phase-III clinical testing.

The report also revealed that while sponsors are relatively comfortable with the outsourcing of clinical operations, they are less likely to outsource the statistical design component of trials or regulatory planning activities.