Jia Jenny Liu, Translational Lead of Early Phase Drug Development at The Kinghorn Cancer Centre, shared a post on LinkedIn:
“I’ve been invited to write an editorial on herding in oncology drug development – the clustering of programmes around the same targets, modalities, and indications.
Herding isn’t inherently irrational. It can:
- De-risk investment.
- Accelerate learning.
- Expand patient access via clinical trials across geographies — and, over time, through early-phase → registrational studies → approvals.
Clinically, this has mattered.
Many patients with rare cancers treated by our team on early-phase combination immunotherapy trials who otherwise had no real options are now in durable remission.
But herding also creates real tensions:
- Duplication vs meaningful innovation.
- Access today vs sustainability tomorrow.
- Patient hope vs opportunity cost.
- Clinical trial capacity that is increasingly consumed by an ever-expanding pipeline of near-identical programmes queued to enter the clinic.
From your vantage point as clinician, researcher, industry, regulator or patient advocate what do you see are the key drivers of herding, and where does it genuinely help vs harm?
I’m not crowdsourcing conclusions.
I’m pressure-testing a framework.”
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