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July 27, 2025
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Episode 22, “The Time Machine”

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Dr. Scott Berry and Dr. Kert Viele discuss the origins and implementation of the “time machine” modeling approach, beginning with sports analytics and progressing to adaptive platform clinical trials.

Episode 22 of "In the Interim…" Dr. Scott Berry and Dr. Kert Viele examine the “statistical time machine,” a modeling approach popularized first in sports applications and applied with impact in platform trials such as I-SPY 2. By exploiting the bridging of arms in platform trials—where multiple treatment arms share control data across different periods—models can estimate the effect of “era” in a platform trial, providing better estimates of the relative treatment effects.

Key points:

● Overlapping enrollment periods allow statistical linking (bridging) between non-concurrent arms, much like methods used to compare athletes from different eras using overlapping careers.

● In I-SPY 2, this approach minimized unnecessary control enrollment and empirical evidence supported stable effects across a decade.

● The method relies on the assumption of treatment effect additivity; it can falter in settings with strong era-by-treatment interactions – which are rare.

● There is an industry continued skepticism about the use of non-concurrent controls, which is surprising given they may represent the single best case scenario for “historical” data use.

Listen to the full episode today: https://www.berryconsultants.com/resource/22-the-time-machine

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