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Friends of Cancer Research (Friends) held a free webinar for advocates to explore the topics discussed during Friends 2025 Annual Meeting. This event provided an overview of the three topics from the November 4th Annual Meeting, offering advocates the opportunity to engage directly with Friends staff and Advisory Advocates, and deepen their understanding of the topics discussed at the Annual Meeting.

Topics & Background

Seamless Trial Designs for Rare Cancer Drug Development (read the white paper)

• Challenges: Rare cancer trials often face barriers due to small patient populations, which makes the use of traditional randomized controlled trials challenging.   
• Innovative Approaches & Policy Implications: The panelists will discuss and outline how adaptive seamless trial designs can reduce transition delays between study phases and maximize data learned from each patient to generate evidence for regulatory assessment. The use of seamless trials can help overcome challenges associated with small patient populations and reduce patient burden without compromising scientific integrity, ultimately enabling faster patient access to potentially life-saving treatments.

Trial Designs for Combination Drug Development  (read the white paper)

• Challenges: There is a growing emphasis on the use of combination drug therapies for cancer. However, introducing more drugs into a regimen may also increase the risk of toxicity, making it important to ensure that each drug contributes meaningfully to the overall therapeutic benefit. 

• Innovative Approaches & Policy Implications: Discussions will explore approaches to define each drug component’s contribution of effect, emerging statistical tools to isolate treatment impact, and explain how these approaches inform regulatory standards that safeguard both efficacy and safety for patients.  

Control Arm Selection for Multi-Regional Clinical Trials (read the white paper)

• Challenges: Control arm selection for multi-regional cancer trials is increasingly complex due to regional differences in treatment availability, regulatory expectations, and evolving standards of care. This variability can impact how results are interpreted and accepted across agencies worldwide.  

• Innovative Approaches & Policy Implications: Panelists will examine practical, science-based strategies to guide control arm selections that are both regionally relevant and globally credible, along with transparent frameworks that support operational feasibility and data reliability.