Donald Berry Using Quotations

Our biggest challenge is to convince the regulators that we are not throwing the baby out with the bathwater by using a Bayesian approach. It is rigorous and we are not losing science by using it.

Using the Bayesian approach, it is natural to do continuous updating as information accrues. This characteristic makes it possible for us to build adaptive designs in clinical trials.

Doctors want to be able to design trials to look at multiple potential treatment combinations and use biomarkers to determine who is responding to what medication. At the end of the day, when they enroll the last patient in the study they want to be able to treat that patient optimally depending on the patient's disease characteristics. Using a Bayesian approach, the trial design exploits the results as the trial is ongoing and adapts based on these interim results. That kind of thing is an anathema in the standard approach.