National Institute for Health and Care Research

View the accessible transcript of this podcast Thomas Jaki, Professor in Statistics at Lancaster University talks to Professor Allan Gaw about the AGILE platform trial which specifically looks at novel (new) treatments for COVID19, as opposed to repurposed treatments. Professor Jaki describes how the efficient platform approach enables investigating treatment benefit (efficacy) and dosage in paral...

View the accessible transcript of this podcast Professor Tim Maughan talks to Professor Allan Gaw about lessons learnt from delivering the world-renowned, molecularly stratified FOCUS4 platform trial  He explains how this flagship trial was designed to respond to a need for a systematic approach to quickly understand which emerging, innovative cancer treatments worked against which cancers. He als...

View the accessible transcript of this podcast Dr Emma Gray talks to Professor Allan Gaw about the clinical trial platform for Multiple Sclerosis studies, known as 'Octopus'. She explains how the Multi-Arm, Multi-Stage platform trial design will help to speed up the development of novel or repurposed treatments for MS that can slow neurodegeneration and/or protect nerves from further dam...

View the accessible transcript of this podcast Dr Hugh Davies talks to Professor Allan Gaw about how research ethics approval services adpated during the pandemic to rapidly approve urgent public health research applications. As well as pointing to practical shifts, such as the switch from fewer face to face meetings to more frequent Zoom meetings, Dr Davies also describes a change of mindset. He...

View the accessible transcript of this podcast Professor Matt Sydes talks to Professor Allan Gaw about some of the challenges that researchers need to consider when communicating research findings to participants who have taken part in complex design trials such as a MAMS trial - multi-arm, multi-stage trial. If a multi-arm platform trial answers more than one research question, should ALL partici...

View the accessible transcript of this podcast Professor Sir Munir Pirmohamed talks to Professor Allan Gaw about how the UK was able to rapidly adapt to the quest to find new treatments for COVID-19. He points to key ingredients such as the NIHR research workforce, fast-tracked funding decisions, reduced bureaucracy, collaborative research culture - all of which contributed to the UK's succes...

View the accessible transcript of this podcast In this episode we are talking about viral hepatitis. You will hear from Professor Andrew Ustianowski, NIHR's National Specialty Co-Lead for Infection and Professor William Rosenberg, NIHR's National Specialty Lead for Hepatology. They will be taking a look at how the research environment in the UK has enabled rapid developments in the treat...

View the accessible transcript of this podcast In this episode you will hear from the national trainee leads for Ear, Nose and Throat (ENT); Jameel Muzzaffar, Rishi Mandavia and Matthew Smith - who is also the co-founder of the INTEGRATE UK Trainee Network. They explain how using an innovative and efficient way of working, devised in the UK, they are able to help answer key research questions in E...

View the accessible transcript of this podcast Emma Lowe talks to Professor Allan Gaw about how the UK was able to get world-renowned, innovative platforms trials - such as RECOVERY, REMAP-CAP and PRINCIPLE - up and running at record speed in order to rapidly deliver answers about which medicines were effective in treating COVID. She reflects on how the uptake and acceptance of forward-thinking tr...

View the accessible transcript of this podcast Professor David Sebag Montefiore talks to Professor Allan Gaw about the advantages of the adaptive platform trial design. He zooms in on the PLATO trial (PersonaLising Anal cancer radioTherapy dose) explaining how a traditional approach would have required three separate clinical trial proposals, three separate applications, and three separate trials...

View the accessible transcript of this podcast Catey Bunce talks to Professor Allan Gaw about the challenges and opportunities presented by #ComplexInnovativeDesign trials from a statistician's perspective. As these trials typically answer multiple research questions, Catey explains why statistician needs to think critically about how to navigate the study so that it answers the questions wit...

View the accessible transcript of this podcast Sarah Blagden talks to Professor Allan Gaw about why she co-led a paper outlining 10 consensus statements offering guidance to the clinical research community on the design and conduct of Complex Innovative Design (CID) trials. She explains how these types of trials can speed up the drug development pathway and help to clear the backlog of of immuno-o...

View the accessible transcript of this podcast Emma Lowe talks to Professor Allan Gaw about the design and delivery of complex and innovative design clinical trials. In this episode they discuss what the term 'complex innovative design' (or CID) means in relation to clinical research. Emma explains that it focuses on 'how the research is done' as opposed to 'why it is bein...