OnCo
ideasIdea

A non-profit phase 1b combination unit that any drug owner can use

Build a shared, not-for-profit clinical unit that runs early combination trials to a standard recipe, so that small companies and academics can test pairs without building their own trial machinery.

Early combination trials repeat the same work: pharmacokinetic interaction, overlapping toxicity, dose finding. A utility unit with standard protocols, pre-negotiated site contracts and a fixed price per arm (analogous to a contract research organisation but mission-driven and data-open) would lower the barrier for combinations that no single company will sponsor, especially those pairing drugs from different owners.

Hypothesis
The unit will run combination phase 1b arms at less than half the cost and time of industry-sponsored equivalents and will publish every result, positive or negative, within a year of completion.
Rationale
Shared infrastructure works elsewhere in science (synchrotrons, sequencing centres). The UK Experimental Cancer Medicine Centres show the model at national scale.
What would test it
Fund a unit for five years with a mandate of twenty combination arms; audit cost, time and publication rate against matched industry trials.
Maturity
speculative
Who has to act
philanthropy
Cost to try
Large (over $50M)
Years to first evidence
4
Bottlenecks it attacks

Connected

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