COVID-19: a vote of confidence in platform trials

The rapid adoption of master protocol trials for COVID-19 therapies was a collective acknowledgement that the trial designs offer the most efficient path to definitive answers. The question is whether industry will look back on the pandemic as the catalyst that finally galvanized uptake of these trial formats, or whether the opportunity will be missed. 

The efficiencies that companies stand to gain from using a single protocol to test multiple therapies against a shared control arm — the platform trial format — have been on the table for decades. But outside of cancer, the design has not caught on.  The situation is similar for two other trial formats that employ master protocols: basket trials and umbrella trials. ...