Hierarchical nested trial design (HNTD) for demonstrating treatment efficacy of new antibacterial drugs in patient populations with emerging bacterial resistance.

In the last decade or so, pharmaceutical drug development activities in the area of new antibacterial drugs for treating serious bacterial diseases have declined, and at the same time, there are worries that the increased prevalence of antibiotic-resistant bacterial infections, especially the increase in drug-resistant Gram-negative infections, limits available treatment options . A recent CDC report, 'Antibiotic Resistance Threats in the United States', indicates that antimicrobial resistance is one of our most serious health threats. However, recently, new ideas have been proposed to change this situation. An idea proposed in this regard is to conduct randomized clinical trials in which some patients, on the basis of a diagnostic test, may show presence of bacterial pathogens that are resistant to the control treatment, whereas remaining patients would show pathogens that are susceptible to the control. The control treatment in such trials can be the standard of care or the best available therapy approved for the disease. Patients in the control arm with resistant pathogens can have the option for rescue therapies if their clinical signs and symptoms worsen. A statistical proposal for such patient populations is to use a hierarchical noninferiority-superiority nested trial design that is informative and allows for treatment-to-control comparisons for the two subpopulations without any statistical penalty. This design can achieve in the same trial dual objectives: (i) to show that the new drug is effective for patients with susceptible pathogens on the basis of a noninferiority test and (ii) to show that it is superior to the control in patients with resistant pathogens. This paper addresses statistical considerations and methods for achieving these two objectives for this design. Published 2014. This article is a U.S. Government work and is in the public domain in the USA.

A note on partial covariate-adjustment and design considerations in noninferiority trials when patient-level data are not available.

The traditional fixed margin approach to evaluating an experimental treatment through an active-controlled noninferiority trial is simple and straightforward. However, its utility relies heavily on the constancy assumption of the experimental data. The recently developed covariate-adjustment method permits more flexibility and improved discriminatory capacity compared to the fixed margin approach. However, one major limitation of this covariate-adjustment methodology is its adherence on the patient-level data, which may not be accessible to investigators in practice. In this article, under some assumptions, we examine the feasibility of a partial covariate-adjustment approach based on data typically available from journal publications or other public data when the patient-level data are unavailable. We illustrate the usefulness of this approach through two real examples. We also provide design considerations on the efficiency of the partial covariate-adjustment approach.

Meta-analysis of gender differences in efficacy outcomes for HIV-positive subjects in randomized controlled clinical trials of antiretroviral therapy (2000-2008).

Women are often underrepresented in randomized clinical trials (RCT) of HIV-1 drugs. As a result, determining whether women have different virologic outcomes compared to men is not always possible because the gender-related analyses usually lack statistical power. To address this important public health concern, the Food and Drug Administration's (FDA) Division of Antiviral Products (DAVP) created a database including 20,328 HIV-positive subjects from 40 RCTs in 18 New Drug Applications (NDAs) submitted to the FDA between 2000 and 2008. These RCTs were conducted for at least 48 weeks in duration and were used to support approval of new molecular entity, new formulation, or major label change. To delineate potential gender differences in antiretroviral treatment (ART), we evaluated the percentage of subjects with HIV RNA less than 50 copies per milliliter at 48 weeks. Analyses of the database represent the most systematic review of gender-related ART efficacy data to date. Overall, the meta-analyses did not demonstrate statistically or clinically significant gender differences in virologic outcome at week 48. However, the corresponding subgroup analyses appear to show several statistically significant gender differences favoring males.

Regulatory issues in developing new HIV protease inhibitors: risks and benefits.

PURPOSE OF REVIEW: To provide a regulatory perspective on developing new HIV protease inhibitors. The present review highlights the risks and benefits of certain design aspects for studies in treatment-naïve and treatment-experienced patients, including timing of studies, study design options, choice of control arms, and duration of treatment. RECENT FINDINGS: The present review highlights published studies to illustrate the need for new therapies and highlights potential historical data to help design future HIV clinical trials better. SUMMARY: New antiretroviral agents for patients with multidrug resistance, including safer, more convenient therapies without significant drug-drug interactions, are still needed for all patients. The goals of therapy have evolved and the expectation for treatment regimens is that the majority of patients, including treatment-experienced patients, will achieve undetectable HIV RNA. New study designs, particularly for treatment-experienced patients, are needed to help identify potential risks and benefits of new treatments.