# A permanent neutral non-profit sponsor for multi-company platform trials

Source: https://onco.cc/ideas/idea-fund-neutral-platform-sponsor/  
OnCo record `idea-fund-neutral-platform-sponsor` (Idea). Data CC BY-NC 4.0, attribute "Data from OnCo (onco.cc)"; commercial use needs a licence.

## TL;DR

Platform trials that test several companies' drugs against one shared control arm, such as I-SPY 2, Lung-MAP, GBM AGILE and STAMPEDE, are each built from scratch by determined individuals. A permanent non-profit sponsor holding the protocol, control arm, statistics and data, with a standard entry contract for companies, would cut the launch of a new platform from years to months.

## Summary

A permanent, funded, non-profit organisation that acts as regulatory sponsor and operator for master protocols in which multiple companies contribute agents, on the model of QuantumLeap Healthcare Collaborative (I-SPY 2), the Lung-MAP public-private partnership, GBM AGILE and the UK's STAMPEDE. The sponsor holds the protocol, the shared control arm, the statistical engine and the data, and offers companies a standard entry contract with pre-agreed rights to use platform results for registration. Each platform today is built from scratch by heroic individuals; institutionalising the function lowers the cost and time of adding a new disease platform from years to months.

## Fields

- Kind: Idea
- Last checked: 2026-09-08
- Hypothesis: A standing neutral sponsor launches at least five new disease platforms within four years, each enrolling multiple company-owned agents, and reduces per-agent evaluation cost and time by at least a third relative to stand-alone phase 2 trials of the same agents.
- Rationale: I-SPY 2 graduated several agents to phase 3 and informed approvals at a fraction of stand-alone trial cost; GBM AGILE and Lung-MAP demonstrate industry willingness to participate under neutral sponsorship. The bottleneck is the absence of a durable institution, not of willing companies.
- Proposed test: Fund the sponsor for five years with a mandate to launch platforms in three under-served indications; report agents evaluated, time to activation and cost per agent against historical stand-alone trials.
- Maturity: being-tested-at-scale
- Actor: philanthropy

## Sources

- I-SPY Trials (QuantumLeap Healthcare Collaborative): https://www.ispytrials.org/
- Lung-MAP: https://www.lung-map.org/

## Connected records

- ideas: [A neutral platform trial for radiotherapy plus immunotherapy combinations](https://onco.cc/ideas/idea-fund-rt-io-platform/), [A shared library of pooled control arms to shrink and speed future trials](https://onco.cc/ideas/idea-fund-control-arm-commons/), [An oncology patent pool for combination trials across companies](https://onco.cc/ideas/idea-fund-combination-patent-pool/)
- cancers: [Glioma & glioblastoma](https://onco.cc/cancers/glioblastoma/), [Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma](https://onco.cc/cancers/pancreatic/), [Triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC)](https://onco.cc/cancers/tnbc/)
- companies: [SWOG Cancer Research Network](https://onco.cc/companies/swog/)
- terms: [Basket, umbrella, and platform trials](https://onco.cc/terms/basket-umbrella-platform/)
- bottlenecks: [Secrecy and intellectual property block collaboration](https://onco.cc/bottlenecks/b-ip-collaboration/), [Too many combinations to test](https://onco.cc/bottlenecks/b-combination-space/), [Trial design, endpoints and cost](https://onco.cc/bottlenecks/b-trial-design/)

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