Lung cancer master protocol study to start Monday

The "master protocol" study for squamous cell lung cancer will start on Monday, Maria Freire, president of the Foundation for NIH (FNIH), told BioCentury. The five-year protocol -- a Phase II/III trial intended to support registration of new drugs -- was designed by Friends of Cancer Research (FOCR) in collaboration with FDA. FNIH, a public-private biomedical research partnership, and SWOG, a cooperative cancer trial group, will manage the trial. Companies will pay for the trial to evaluate their drugs, and after seeing preliminary data will have the option to continue or independently conduct a Phase III trial (see BioCentury, Nov. 4, 2013). ...