Regulator-Requested Non-Interventional Postauthorization Safety and Effectiveness Studies for Oncology Drugs: A...

There has been a growing number of oncology drug approvals. Non-interventional postauthorization safety/effectives studies (PASSs/PAESs) aim to provide real-world evidence on the safety/effectiveness of oncology drugs postapproval. To understand the current landscape, a comprehensive search as of March 1, 2021, was conducted in major register/databases. We found that requested studies increased from 1 in 2006-2010 to 47 in 2016-2020. Of 78 total studies identified, 50 focused on safety/risk assessment (64.1%), 6 on effectiveness (7.7%), 3 on drug utilization (3.8%), 1 on disease epidemiology (1.3%), and 18 on effectiveness of additional risk minimization measures (23.1%). For safety/risk assessment studies, 58.9% focused on nonspecific end points (e.g., frequency of adverse events). For effectiveness studies, the leading primary outcome was overall survival. Overall, safety/risk assessment studies concerning nonspecific end points for vascular endothelial growth factor (receptor) inhibitors were most requested. Regarding data sources, though a majority (71.8%) used primary data collection, a growing proportion utilized secondary data sources. Among 23 studies with information available on study design, 10 (43.5%) were single-arm cohort studies, 9 (39.1%) were cross-sectional studies, 3 (13.1%) were comparative cohort studies, and 1 (4.3%) was a nested-case-control study. In conclusion, there was an increasing number of oncology-specific non-interventional PASSs/PAESs, with a majority on safety/risk assessment. Although most utilized primary data collection, there was an increasing use of secondary real-world data sources. Few conducted comparative analyses, and most used single-arm designs. Future efforts are needed to assess how findings of these studies would impact regulatory decisions and improve knowledge of toxicity for clinical/translational development.