How the BSU can collaborate with your company

We are interested in learning about problems that you face where existing statistical methodology appears inadequate. We are open to discuss ways of collaborating on developing any novel methodology required, including writing software in R or Stata. Alternatively, we are able to provide bespoke training courses on a variety of advanced topics in biostatistics.

We are currently working on a range of problems that were motivated by our industry partners. These include:

• methods for including historical information on control group patients to increase the efficiency of clinical trials;
• using adaptive designs to improve the power and ethics of telehealth trials;
• the development of methods that allow correcting for treatment switching in late-stage phase III trials, including creating user-friendly software in R and Stata;
• the application of methods to improve analysis of composite outcomes made up of continuous subcomponents, such as those used in phase II cancer trials and phase III rheumatoid arthritis trials;
• using novel designs in phase I dose-escalation trials with combination medicines or single agents;
• the comparison of methods for handling missing outcome data in randomised trials, where the data are thought to be missing not at random;
• the development of models of disease progression in chronic diseases, so that treatments can be targeted at the right patients.

In each case, we have set up purposely formulated collaborative agreements, which describe the mutual benefits of the collaboration.

The Biostatistics unit has collaborations with industry across all research programs. These collaborations range from providing consultancy on a distinct project to joint supervision of entire PhD projects. Companies that scientists in the BSU have collaborated with in the past include:

• Novartis
• AstraZeneca
• Philips Research
• GSK

Training Opportunities

The BSU runs several high-quality statistical training courses each year at our location on Cambridge Biomedical Research Campus. Typically these courses each attract multiple industry based attendees. Several of the courses have also been run exclusively for a single company. Past course topics have included analysis methods for adjusting for treatment switching, Bayesian methods using WinBUGS, health economics, statistical analysis using R, adaptive designs for clinical trials, and methods for analysis of genomic data.

Other courses are currently under development, and we would welcome feedback from you about which courses would be of interest to you and your company.

Industry Contact

We are keen to expand our collaborations with industry. If you would like to discuss further about engaging with us here at the BSU, please contact Alison Quenault in the first instance.