Qureight, a data science company, is using synthetic control arms — trial groups generated from existing real-world and historical datasets rather than traditional placebo groups.
Their approach involves repeatedly drawing random patient samples from external datasets and matching them to trial participants on key baseline characteristics, generating hundreds of potential control arms.
The method has been applied in several idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis trials, including Vicore Pharma‘s AIR study (assessing buloxibutid) and Avalyn‘s ATLAS trial (nebulised pirfenidone), in both cases supporting evidence of treatment efficacy.
This approach has the potential to reduce trial size, speed up recruitment, cut costs, and improve early-stage decision-making in drug development.
Read more at this link on The Scientist