FDA's Pazdur Advocates Platform Trials For Cancer Drug Development

US FDA is encouraging common mechanisms of drug testing to enable pharma industry collaboration and avoid redundancy; Pazdur notes that there are many similar PD-1 drugs.

Cancer treatment - diagnosis written on a white piece of paper. Syringe and vaccine with drugs. - Image — US FDA official calls for industry collaboration in cancer drug development

Richard Pazdur, the director of US Food and Drug Administration's Oncology Center of Excellence, has one plea for industry: work together to develop new cancer drugs. He said the agency is trying to foster this collaboration by encouraging the use of platform trials and common controls.

Speaking at Chasing Cancer, a 17 October event hosted by The Washington Post, Pazdur was asked what his greatest frustrations...