STAT+: HHS announces new efforts to speed up, expand clinical trials with AI — SkimNews
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- HHS announced a set of new initiatives to speed up clinical trials by incorporating AI and computational models and moving away from sharply delineated trial phases
- The centerpiece is a five-year program dubbed SURPASS — "Simulation-augmented, Real-time Platform Adaptive Seamless Trials" — set to launch later this fall
- SURPASS will solicit "ground-breaking ideas from cross-disciplinary teams in statistics, AI, and clinical trial design, operations, and regulation"
- The program is being launched through ARPA-H (the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health)
- The initial announcement did not specify how much funding was designated for the new initiatives
- Details on whether participants would be offered more flexibility or resources were also not provided in the rollout
Why it matters: HHS's announcement did not disclose funding levels or what resources participants would receive, leaving the program's scale unclear for researchers planning to submit ideas this fall. The five-year effort is built around adaptive, AI-driven trial designs rather than traditional phased protocols — a structural pivot whose practical size depends on budget figures not yet released.
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