The Use of Adaptive Designs in the Efficient and Accurate Identification of Effective Anticancer Therapies

Scott S. Emerson, MD, PhD

May, 2011

Abstract: Many clinical investigators have decried the high cost of drug development and the low rate of “positive” studies among phase 3 clinical trials. There have been several initiatives to try to use adaptive designs to speed up this process. In this talk I discuss possible roles of adaptive designs in the “drug discovery” process. In particular I focus on the key role that screening trials play in the phased investigation of new treatments, and the role that sequential clinical trials can play in increasing the number of effective cancer therapies detected.