Cancer And Accelerated Approval: FDA To Crack Down On Single-Arm Trials, Refractory Disease Focus

US FDA cancer chief Rick Pazdur plans to send industry to ‘rehab’ with Project Frontrunner, which will push for development of cancer drugs in randomized controlled trials in earlier disease. Goal is to reduce time of uncertainty between accelerated approval and confirmatory evidence.

man doing one arm push up with child on back
FDA wants sponsors to curtail use of single-arm studies in oncology. • Source: Shutterstock

The US Food and Drug Administration’s Oncology Center of Excellence is kicking off a new project to push sponsors towards more randomized controlled trials and studies of drugs in earlier disease settings as part of accelerated approval applications.

The new emphasis, known as Project Frontrunner, should shorten the period of uncertainty between a drug’s accelerated approval and when...

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