OnCo
ideasIdea

One master trial for cancer prevention drugs across many precancers

Prevention trials are slow and run separately. A shared platform trial across precancers like Barrett's, oral leukoplakia, lung nodules and pancreatic cysts would test many drugs faster.

Each precursor cohort has small stand-alone chemoprevention trials. Propose a master protocol with shared infrastructure, biomarker-defined precursor cohorts, intermediate endpoints (regression, progression-free interval), and adaptive arm addition and dropping, funded jointly by NCI's prevention network and philanthropy.

Hypothesis
A platform cuts time from candidate agent to phase 2 readout from about eight years to about three and tests at least three times more agents per dollar than stand-alone trials.
Rationale
Platform trials (I-SPY, STAMPEDE) achieved this in treatment; precancers share biology such as chronic inflammation and immune escape.
What would test it
Launch with three precursor cohorts and four agents; evaluate throughput at four years.
Maturity
speculative
Who has to act
research
Cost to try
Large (over $50M)
Years to first evidence
5
Bottlenecks it attacks

Key papers

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