2-day In-person Seminar How to Design and to Interpret a Clinical Trial in the Targeted Therapies Era

Overview:

The seminar will mainly focus on critical points related to clinical trials.

Among the others, a critical point is related to the clinical trial endpoints, other than survival, that objectively demonstrate meaningful clinical benefit. In fact, with the introduction of molecular pathology, patients and their oncologists now deal with a greater variety of malignant diseases than ever before, each of which likely benefits from a unique approach to treatment. Furthermore, many new drugs determine slow tumor progression instead of causing tumor shrinkage. Therefore cancer drug trials may require more patients and the more frequent use of placebo controls, thus presenting greater recruitment challenges as well as requiring a long period of time to reach major clinical endpoints, more expensive clinical documentation to record progression events, and additional regulatory scrutiny.

For all the mentioned reasons potential surrogate endpoints and other biomarkers have been identified and evaluated and they will be discussed during the seminar.

Another critical point is related to the clinical trial conduction within the sites. Therefore it is also important to know what deviations, violations and exceptions represent and when they could have an impact on the clinical trial results. On the other hand, it is important to underline in which situations a waiver could be given and a less strict Company's behavior could facilitate the study without compromising the study results.

Why should you attend?

More than 80% of drugs for all indications entering clinical development do not get marketing approval, with many failing late in development often in Phase III trials, because of unexpected safety issues or difficulty determining efficacy, including confounded outcomes. Many factors may be involved in this low success rate: among the others, the limited knowledge of the determinants of drug sensitivity and resistance; heterogeneous patient populations and lack of biomarkers to identify patients most likely to benefit from specific treatments; the design of the clinical trials, which are often made on the basis of the "traditional statistical" requirements; the lack of agreement among clinicians, investigators, and regulators as to what constitutes clinical benefit in some circumstances.

Furthermore, several agents that obtain the approval are criticized by Medical Oncologists. In fact, regardless of approval, phase III trials with new drugs may presents some criticism that could lead on one hand to delay or limitation in the approval and on the other hand on a limited belief in the drug within Medical Oncologists. This may cause a reduced prescription of the drug, despite its real activity and efficacy.

·         Traditional statistical design of clinical trials in Oncology (phases of studies, standard endpoints...)

·         Introduction of targeted therapies in the Oncology field and of the related different needs (i.e. identification and validation of biomarkers). Examples will be provided about the most important types of tumors (lung cancer, colorectal cancer, breast cancer), as well as the more rare diseases.

·         Analysis of the new endpoints related to the different mechanism of action of the new therapies will be provided.

·         Requirements of the regulatory authorities, with a special focus on the rebounds in the European and Italian System (with examples of major criticisms of some relevant trials)

·         Meaning of the terms deviation, violation and exception and their impact on the clinical trials conduction and results.

·         Phase III statistical design of clinical trials in Oncology, in particular with new drugs (analysis of recent examples of phase III trials which present limitations).

This seminar will provide valuable assistance to Companies, CROs, Investors and Professionals, including Physicians and Payers. Those that would benefit most would be:

·         Companies involved in the development of new anti-cancer drugs

·         Professionals involved in the design of clinical trials in Oncology

·         Production Managers

·         Monitors

·         CROs

·         Investors

·         Medical Oncologists

Registration & Breakfast                     8.30 am - 9.00 am

Lecture 1:             Targeted therapies in Medical Oncology - big killers                                    9 am to 10.30 am

Teas break                                             10.30 - 11.00 am

Lecture 2:             Targeted therapies in Medical Oncology - rare tumors                                11.00 am to 12.30 pm

Lunch break                                          12.30 pm to 1.30 pm

Lecture 3:             Traditional statistical design of clinical trials in Oncology                             1.30 pm to 3.00 pm

Tea Break                                              3.00 pm to 3.30 pm

Lecture 4:             New clinical trials design in Oncology                                                              3.30 pm to 5.00 pm

Lecture 5:             Q & A                                                                                                                     5.00 pm to 5.30 pm

Day Two

Registration & Breakfast     8.30 am - 9.00 am

Lecture 1:             Requirements of regulatory authorities                                                          9 am to 10.30 am

Teas break                                             10.30 - 11.00 am

Lecture 2:             New endpoints, impact of deviation, violation & exception on clinical trials 11.00 am to 12.30 pm

Lunch break                                          12.30 pm to 1.30 pm

Lecture 3:             Critical analysis of phase III trials - part 1                                         1.30 pm to 3.00 pm

Tea Break                                              3.00 pm to 3.30 pm

Lecture 4:             Critical analysis of phase III trials - part 2                                         3.30 pm to 5.00 pm

Lecture 5:             Q & A                                                                                                     5.00 pm to 5.30 pm

Lecture 8:             Corrective Action

Lecture 9:              Economic Credentialing

Lecture 10:           Physician Employment Agreements 

ABOUT SPEAKER:
Rossana Berardi

Consultant Medical Oncologist and Lecturer, University Hospital 

Rossana Berardi, MD is a Consultant Medical Oncologist and Associate Professor at University Hospital. She is also the Responsible of the Trial Unit at Dept of Oncology - Universita Politecnica Marche - Italy. Dr Berardi usually deals with about 35 GCP trials/year with new drugs mainly in lung and GI cancer.

She is also the Responsible of the Trial Unit at Dept of Oncology - Universita Politecnica dell Marche - Italy. Dr Berardi usually deals with about 35 GCP trials/year with new drugs mainly in lung and GI cancer. She also treats significant numbers of melanoma, neuroendrocrine tumors and urological cancer patients.

Dr Berardi has a special interest in consulting with pharmaceutical companies regarding acquisitions and design of clinical trials.

Dr Berardi is Associate Professor in Medical Oncology:

- At the Faculties of Medicine, Nursing, Midwifery and Laboratory Technician, Universita Politecnica Marche, Ancona, Italy

- At the Faculty of Nursing, Universita Politecnica Marche, Macerata, Italy

- at the Post-graduate Schools of Oncology, Haematology, Nutrition Science, General Surgery, Radiology, Universita Politecnica Marche, Ancona, Italy.

She is also Assistant Professor at the Doctorate in Osteoncology, Universita "Campus Bio-Medico", and Rome, Italy.

She is Member and national representative of the Lecturer in Medical Oncology of the Academic Medical Oncology Committee, Member of the "Education" Working Group of the Italian Association of Medical Oncology and member of the "ASCO/ESMO Core Curriculum" Task Force of the European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO).

Dr. Berardi has been awarded many grants and prizes (among the others, several ASCO and ESMO travel grants and merit awards and prizes as best researcher).

She has authored more than 100 manuscripts in peer-reviewed journals, she has been a speaker at national and international meetings and she has been involved in advisory boards on GI, lung cancer, SIADH and on clinical and translational research.

Dr. Berardi was a Research Fellow in the Department of Oncology at Middlesex Hospital, University College London Hospitals.

Dr Berardi has been selected as an expert evaluator in several boards of examiners (i.e. European Community, Italian University Ministry).

DATE AND VENUE:

Location 1:  Philadelphia, PA | October 9th & 10th, 2014 | 9:00 AM to 6:00 PM

Venue: WILL BE ANNOUNCED SOON

Price: $1,295.00    

Register now and save $200. (Early Bird)
Until September 26, Early Bird Price: $1,295.00 
from September 27 to October 07, Regular Price: $1,495.00

Location 2:  SFO, CA | December 11th & 12th, 2014 | 9:00 AM to 6:00 PM

Venue: WILL BE ANNOUNCED SOON

Price: $1,295.00    

Register now and save $200. (Early Bird)
Until October 20th, Early Bird Price: $1,295.00 
from October 21st to December 09th, Regular Price: $1,495.00

Contact Information

Event Coordinator

Toll free: 800-385-1607

Fax: 302 288 6884

Event Link - http://bit.ly/1Ad48vR

Email: support@mentorhealth.com

Website: http://www.mentorhealth.com

LIVE CHAT SUPPORT -http://www.mentorhealth.com/chat/client.php?

MentorHealth

Net Zealous LLC

43337 Livermore Common, Fremont CA 94539, USA