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Updated: May 25, 2026

Drug Repurposing Hypothesis Generation Using the "RE:fine Drugs" System
Published on: December 11, 2016
Resampling phase III data to assess phase II trial designs and endpoints
Manish R Sharma1, Theodore G Karrison, Yuyan Jin
1Departments of Medicine and Health Studies, University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois, USA.
For growth inhibitory agents in metastatic renal cancer, a randomized phase II trial using the log ratio of tumor sizes is more powerful than single-arm designs or those using progression-free survival to predict phase III outcomes.
Area of Science:
- Oncology
- Clinical Trial Design
- Biostatistics
Background:
- The optimal phase II clinical trial design and endpoint for evaluating growth inhibitory agents remain debated.
- Predicting phase III outcomes from phase II trials is crucial for drug development efficiency.
Purpose of the Study:
- To compare the predictive power of various phase II trial designs and endpoints for growth inhibitory agents.
- To evaluate the ability of different designs to predict known phase III results in metastatic renal cancer.
Main Methods:
- Simulated 5,000 phase II trials by resampling patients from positive (sorafenib) and negative (AE941) phase III trials in metastatic renal cancer.
- Assessed single-arm and randomized designs using endpoints such as response rate (RR) by RECIST, mean log ratio of tumor sizes, and progression-free survival (PFS) at 90 days (PFS-90) and overall PFS.
Main Results:
- Single-arm trials showed a 55% positive prediction rate for sorafenib and 1% for AE941 using RR by RECIST.
- Randomized trials (20 patients/arm) demonstrated higher positive prediction rates: RR by RECIST (55% vs 7%), log ratio (88% vs 25%), PFS-90 (64% vs 15%), and overall PFS (69% vs 9%) for sorafenib vs AE941, respectively.
Conclusions:
- The randomized phase II design with the log ratio endpoint offers superior power to predict positive phase III results (sorafenib).
- This design also exhibits a higher false positive rate for negative phase III results (AE941) compared to single-arm designs or those using overall PFS.
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