Public Comments
Comments provided on: June 24, 2024
Comments provided to: U.S. Food and Drug Administration; FDA-2024-D-1376
We responded to a series of three FDA draft guidance documents addressing eligibility criteria for U.S.-based cancer clinical trials. For all three documents, we were supportive of the efforts the FDA has taken to make clinical trials more representative of the intended post-approval patient population. We encouraged additional clarity and granularity with regard to operationalizing these draft guidelines, in advance of their final issuance. Further, we agreed that eligibility criteria should be carefully considered, caution against copying and pasting eligibility criteria from the protocol of one study into the draft protocol of a new study, and advocate that exclusion criteria should be clearly justified based on safety or ethical reasons.
Our public comments on the third guidance (iii) “Cancer Clinical Trial Eligibility Criteria: Washout Periods and Concomitant Medications,” asked the FDA to clarify its use of the term “medication,” whether either the recommendations regarding concomitant medications or the washout period differ in the case of early (Phase 1/2a) versus late (Phase 3 and post-approval) trials, and when additional data and sub-studies might be needed to understand potential drug-drug interactions when participants are taking concomitant medications for chronic conditions.