Cytel to hold Complex Innovative Trial Design symposium

Cytel Inc., the leading global provider of innovative analytical software and consulting services to the life sciences industry, has announced its Complex Innovative Trial Design Symposium and East Training event, which will bring together industry-leading experts to discuss innovative solutions to pressing challenges including rare disease clinical trials, and will also offer delegates an in-depth East software training session.

The event will take place 6–7 November at Alexion’s headquarters in Boston, Massachusetts.

Cytel noted it has hosted the annual Complex Innovative Trial Design Symposium and East Training since 2011 to connect global thought leaders and innovators from the pharmaceutical industry in order to facilitate the exchange of ideas and reveal new insights on the latest developments in adaptive clinical trial designs. The event also plays a key role in guiding the continual evolution of Cytel’s East platform, the industry-standard software for adaptive clinical trial design and analysis. Amongst the list of guest speakers will be leaders from Pfizer, Takeda and Servier, as well as statistical experts from Cytel, Alexion and Axio, Cytel said.

Cytel said that this year’s symposium will focus on overcoming the acute challenges associated with clinical trials for rare diseases, with an emphasis on how innovative, adaptive clinical trial designs can be exploited to maximize trial efficiency, accommodate specialized data requirements and enhance rare disease trial success rates. It noted that the latest insights and detailed case studies will be shared through a series of engaging presentations, and participants will also have the opportunity to actively participate in an East training session on day two.

Currently, rare diseases affect around 350 million patients worldwide, with 90% of rare diseases still without an approved therapy. In addition, scarce patient resources and lack of disease knowledge regarding the best endpoints and treatment effect size makes clinical development for new and effective therapeutics for rare diseases especially difficult, Cytel said.

Yannis Jemiai, Chief Scientific Officer at Cytel, said: “In order to overcome the myriad of clinical trial pain points presented by rare diseases, we need to think creatively and adopt a knowledge-sharing approach to the clinical development process. The symposium will offer a key space to facilitate peer-to-peer exchanges, ideation, and sharing of practical solutions. We are driving forward novel experimental designs and statistical approaches for better clinical outcomes in patients with rare disorders.”