On November 10, 2025 Ontada, a leader in real-world oncology data and insights, reported it will present new research findings in an oral presentation at the ISPOR Europe 2025 conference, being held this week in Glasgow, Scotland. ISPOR is the leading professional society for health economics and outcomes research globally. The study, titled, "A Framework for Accelerating Clinical Development with Real-World External Control Arms (ECA) in Phase 2 Trials," addresses a critical gap in early-stage clinical research by offering a scalable approach to contextualizing single-arm trial data.
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This research highlights the potential of ECAs to enhance Phase 2 trials, which often lack traditional control groups and face challenges related to small sample sizes and slow patient accrual, particularly in oncology and rare diseases.
Key Data Findings
Real-world data (RWD) curation: The framework outlines a systematic approach to identifying and curating structured and unstructured RWD sources to build robust ECAs.
Trial emulation: It applies rigorous eligibility criteria from the trial to real-world cohorts, ensuring comparability.
Adaptive matching strategies: To address limited trial sample sizes, the framework uses simulation techniques to create synthetic datasets that support more robust patient matching.
Pilot application: The framework was successfully applied to a Phase 2 single arm trial of Tucatinib and Doxil in HER2+ metastatic breast cancer, demonstrating feasibility and value.
"Phase 2 trials are essential for identifying promising therapies, but their inherent design poses challenges to achieving rapid and robust inferences," said Jessica K. Paulus, ScD, vice president, Real World Research, Ontada. "This framework leverages high-quality real-world data and extends state-of-the-science methods in ECA development to overcome barriers in Phase 2 trial conduct, offering a practical path to accelerate development while maintaining scientific rigor. It’s a meaningful step toward more efficient clinical research."
Study Methodology
The framework was developed through a literature review of best practices in Phase 3 ECA design and adapted for Phase 2 single-arm trials. It incorporates simulation-based matching to address the challenge of limited trial patient data and was piloted using real-world data for a newly launched Phase 2 trial in HER2+ metastatic breast cancer.
Research at ISPOR Europe 2025
Ontada is showcasing its research capabilities at ISPOR with five accepted abstracts on topics such as evolving trends in patient demographics and diagnosis in gastric cancer, improving data quality in oncology electronic health record-derived databases, assessing secular trends in ovarian cancer diagnoses, and real-world associations between smoking status and genetic driver mutations in metastatic lung cancer. For a complete list of Ontada presentations, visit Ontada’s ISPOR Europe 2025 site. Additionally, visit Ontada at booth #616 at the Scottish Event Campus in Glasgow, November 10–12, to explore our latest research and real-world oncology solutions.
"At Ontada, we are committed to advancing oncology research through innovative applications of real-world data," said Christine Davis, president, Ontada. "Our presence at ISPOR Europe reflects the depth and diversity of our real-world research capabilities. From advancing trial design with external control arms to uncovering trends in cancer diagnosis and treatment, our work is helping shape the future of oncology through data-driven insights."
Ontada is a part of McKesson, which has an unmatched portfolio of oncology and multispecialty solutions and partners that provide research, insights, technologies and services that help to address barriers and improve cancer and multispecialty care.
(Press release, Ontada, NOV 10, 2025, View Source [SID1234659748])