JAMAevidence JAMA Guide to Statistics and Methods Platform Clinical Trials for the Efficient Evaluation of Multiple Treatments With Dr Webb
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Mar 5, 2026 
Steve A. Webb, intensive care physician and professor specializing in adaptive and platform trial design. He explains what platform trials are and how they differ from traditional single-question studies. He describes adding and dropping interventions adaptively. He highlights operational and statistical efficiencies, handling heterogeneity, and when platforms may not be appropriate.
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Platform Trials Are Reusable Evolving Infrastructure
- A platform trial is a single evolving infrastructure that answers multiple questions simultaneously or sequentially.
- Steve A. Webb contrasts it with one-off traditional trials and explains domains as mutually exclusive sets of alternative interventions.
Domains Let Multidimensional Treatment Comparisons
- Multifactorial platform trials use domains so patients can receive assignments in two or more domains concurrently.
- Webb gives the example of antibiotics as one domain and immune modulation as another, enabling interaction assessment between treatments.
Add New Interventions Into Existing Platform To Save Time
- Use platform structure to add new interventions over time to speed startup and lower costs for evaluating additional treatments.
- Webb recommends adding interventions into established infrastructure rather than building new trials from scratch.