
Innovation in the clinic is picking up steam. How adaptive designs could pave the road to personalized medicine
Biotech Voices is a collection of exclusive opinion editorials from some of the leading voices in biopharma on the biggest industry questions today. Think you have a voice that should be heard? Reach out to Amber Tong.
Normally, when you hear about innovation in R&D, the focus is on the “R” and not the “D.” There’s a tendency to assume that lab-based scientists do the really creative research, whereas clinical development is a fairly straightforward, check-the-boxes activity.
There’s a kernel of truth in this otherwise unfair assumption. Just as the basic design of a car hasn’t changed much from the cars our grandparents drove — gas and brake pedals, four tires, and a steering wheel — clinical trials still have time-honored features like randomization, control arms and blinding. What is changing, though, is that we’ve begun to augment well-established methods with innovations that promise to make drug development faster, less expensive and more successful.
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