Related Experiment Video
Updated: Jul 19, 2025

A Clinical Trial Assessing the Safety, Efficacy, and Delivery of Olive-Oil-Based Three-Chamber Bags for Parenteral Nutrition
Published on: September 20, 2019
Calculation of Phase 2 dose-finding study sample size for reliable Phase 3 dose selection
Fang Liu1, Qing Zhao1, Anthony J Rodgers1
1Biostatistics and Research Decision Sciences, Merck & Co., Inc., Rahway, New Jersey, USA.
Abstract:
Sample sizes of Phase 2 dose-finding studies, usually determined based on a power requirement to detect a significant dose-response relationship, will generally not provide adequate precision for Phase 3 target dose selection. We propose to calculate the sample size of a dose-finding study based on the probability of successfully identifying the target dose within an acceptable range (e.g., 80%-120% of the target) using the multiple comparison and modeling procedure (MCP-Mod). With the proposed approach, different design options for the Phase 2 dose-finding study can also be compared. Due to inherent uncertainty around an assumed true dose-response relationship, sensitivity analyses to assess the robustness of the sample size calculations to deviations from modeling assumptions are recommended. Planning for a hypothetical Phase 2 dose-finding study is used to illustrate the main points. Codes for the proposed approach is available at https://github.com/happysundae/posMCPMod.
More Related Videos
Related Concept Videos
Sample Size Calculation
The sample size for the given experiment or sampling effort is fundamental to any study design. Sample size decides the number of...
Types of Biopharmaceutical Studies: Controlled and Non-Controlled Approaches
Non-controlled studies, commonly employed for initial exploration, lack a control group, rendering them susceptible to biases and external influences. In contrast,...
Clinical Trials: Overview
Clinical Trials
There are four phases in a clinical trial. A phase one...
Analysis of Population Pharmacokinetic Data
Preclinical Development: Overview

