Strength of evidence for the efficacy of oncological drugs: A comparison of endpoints, approval pathways, and types of treatment

We aim to demonstrate the utility of adopting a Bayesian framework to quantify evidential strength and uncertainty for statistical evaluations of benefits of novel cancer drugs at the time of approval. Reanalysing data from the CEIT-Cancer project, we aim to (1) describe evidential strength for clinical trials of drug and biologic products approved for the treatment of cancer in the last two decades; (2) contrast evidential standards between endpoints, accelerated vs. non-accelerated approval, lines of treatment, and type of cancer to describe potential differences in evidential strength.