BioCentury
ARTICLE | Product Development

MATCH’s long game

Why NCI-MATCH’s misses will steer future studies as much as its hits

June 16, 2018 3:35 AM UTC

Although three of the first four arms in NCI-MATCH missed their endpoints, the results suggest the basket trial is doing what it is supposed to -- finding efficacy signals in rare cancers. It’s also yielded insights that will enhance design of future arms.

NCI’s Molecular Analysis for Therapy Choice (MATCH) trial began in August 2015 to test how targeted therapies perform across cancers that share common genetic features. The study assigns patients to treatment arms based on a tumor’s genetic alteration rather than its tissue of origin (see “MATCH Making”)...