Seamless Phase 2/3 Oncology Trial Design With Flexible Sample Size Determination

Conventional seamless phase 2/3 design with fixed sample size determination (SSD) has gained its popularity in oncology drug development due to attractive features such as significantly shortening the development timeline, minimizing sample size, as well as early decision making. However, this design is not immune to inaccurate treatment effect assumption when only limited efficacy data are available at study design stage. We propose an innovative seamless phase 2/3 study design with flexible SSD for oncology trials, in which the trial is designed under a distribution of treatment effect instead of one single assumption due to huge uncertainty of treatment effect at design stage and the sample size for end of phase 3 analysis is not predetermined at design stage, but rather dynamically determined based on observed treatment effect at phase 2 portion. Some practical sample size determination rules for end of phase 3 analysis will be discussed. The proposed design can lead to reduced sample size or/and improved power compared with conventional seamless phase 2/3 design with fixed SSD. This innovative study design can be especially useful for programs with aggressive development strategy to expedite the process in delivering efficacious treatment to patients.