Data and Safety Monitoring Committees in Clinical Trials

Praise for the first edition:"Given the author’s years of experience as a statistician and as a founder of the first DMC in pharmaceutical industry trials, I highly recommend this book—not only for experts because of its cogent and organized presentation, but more importantly for young investigators who are seeking information about the logistical and philosophical aspects of a DMC." -S. T. Ounpraseuth, The American Statistician In the first edition of this well-regarded book, the author provided a groundbreaking and definitive guide to best practices in pharmaceutical industry data monitoring committees (DMCs). Maintaining all the material from the first edition and adding substantial new material, Data and Safety Monitoring Committees in Clinical Trials, Second Edition is ideal for training professionals to serve on their first DMC as well as for experienced clinical and biostatistical DMC members, sponsor and regulatory agency staff. The second edition guides the reader through newly emerging DMC responsibilities brought about by regulations emphasizing risk vs benefit and the emergence of risk-based monitoring. It also provides the reader with many new statistical methods, clinical trial designs and clinical terminology that have emerged since the first edition. The references have been updated and the very popular end-of-chapter Q&A section has been supplemented with many new experiences since the first edition. New to the Second Edition: Presents statistical methods, tables, listings and graphs appropriate for safety review, efficacy analysis and risk vs benefit analysis, SPERT and PRISMA initiatives. Newly added interim analysis for efficacy and futility section. DMC responsibilities in SUSARs (Serious Unexpected Serious Adverse Reactions), basket trials, umbrella trials, dynamic treatment strategies /SMART trials, pragmatic trials, biosimilar trials, companion diagnostics, etc. DMC responsibilities for data quality and fraud detection (Fraud Recovery Plan) Use of patient reported outcomes of safety Use of meta analysis and data outside the trial New ideas for training and compensation of DMC membersJay Herson is Senior Associate, Biostatistics, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health where he teaches courses on clinical trials and drug development based on his many years experience in clinical trials in academia and the pharmaceutical industry.

"The book by Dr. Herson is written amazingly well. The book concentrates on pharmaceutical industrysponsored confirmatory clinical trials and can serve as excellent sources of knowledge for all the aspects of data safety monitoring committee (DMC) activities. A great feature of the book is the “DMCounselor” section at the end of each chapter, covering nearly 70 questions with answers, of which about 33% are for a DMC Chair, 30% for the DMC Biostatistician member, 30% for a DMC physician member, and the rest are for others (e.g., project manager)."~ Daniel Jia, Journal of Biopharmaceutical Statistics"Nicely written and readable cover-to-cover, the author walks through every facet of a Data Monitoring Committee (DMC) beginning with an overview of their past and current place in drug development, to how they are organized and interfaced with other committees, and on to the specifics of how a typical meeting is split into an open and closed session. From there it moves on to clinical issues, including how SAEs are categorized, statistical methods, including Bayesian and frequentist conditional power calculations, common biases and pitfalls, and guidance for how DMC decisions are made. It concludes with emerging issues due to new clinical trial designs mandated by the FDA to speed up the drug development process."~Donna Pauler Ankerst, Biometrics

Jay Herson is Senior Associate, Biostatistics, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health where he teaches courses on clinical trials and drug development based on his many years experience in clinical trials in academia and the pharmaceutical industry.