Episode 31: Optimizing Clinical Trial Design with Bishal Gyawali

Bishal Gyawali (@oncology_bg), MD, PhD, Queen’s University Cancer Research Institute (Canada), joins the show to discuss the measurement of clinical benefit of new therapies and optimizing clinical trial design. Dr. Gyawali recaps a presentation he gave at last year’s ESMO Annual Meeting on clinical trial characteristics leading to artificial improvement of ESMO-MCBS scores for cancer drugs, goes on to list in detail the ten trial design characteristics that inflate the scores (including the use of surrogate endpoints and quality of life reporting, among others), and wraps up with a comment on future opportunities for clinical trial reform.View Dr. Gyawali’s recent publication on clinical trial design https://www.esmoopen.com/article/S2059-7029(21)00075-2/fulltext