Can they demonstrate scientific merits and align with corporate objectives? Often initiated by researchers or investigators as a part of an observation, an Investigator Initiated Trial (IIT) or Investigator Sponsored Trial is one of the kind of clinical trials that take up specific questions from clinical care, such as therapy optimization or off-label use, and are usually of no economic interest.
Unexpected discoveries in the various stages of drug development are still rather the norm than the exception. Unexpected drug effects are not limited to only adverse drug reactions. Some effects turn out to be beneficial, or even to be an unexpected breakthrough in the treatment of another disease.
We have a target and we have a spreading pattern – so why don’t we have a therapy yet? And why are we consciously ignoring the few reliable findings from preclinical and translational studies?
Although not yet brought into daily clinical routine, new screening methods and individualized pharmacological treatment concepts are under evaluation and show promising first results. Three recent findings describe the advances in research for breast, prostate and pancreatic cancer.