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During a clinical trial clinic visit in January, my trial coordinator at Roswell Park Cancer Institute asked me if I would be interested in speaking before the FDA’s Oncologic Drug Advisory Committee about my experience as a patient taking the experimental drug rociletinib. Clovis Oncology, the company that makes and is testing the drug, was hoping to receive accelerated approval to start being able to sell this drug on the market, and a hearing scheduled for Tuesday, April 12 before this important advisory committee was key. The company was looking for patients to speak about their experience with the drug.  I immediately said yes. Such opportunities are rare, and it’s exciting to have an opportunity to be part of the important process of drug approval beyond taking a drug as an experimental subject. As a bonus, the hearing would be held in Silver Spring, MD, near where our daughter lives, and I would get to see her and her husband. In February, I talked with an executive...

If there are demerit points for bloggers, I’ve surely earned quite a few by going through a clinical trial from entrance to exit without blogging about the experience at all. I will do my best to make up for this omission of potentially useful information with a synopsis of my experience. If you have decided that a clinical trial might be your best next option, the first step is finding a clinical trial for which you match the profile of a qualified participant and that is at a logistically possible location. When my search for a clinical trial began in earnest in March 2015, I knew that there were two possible drugs that might be my best second line of treatment. One drug, AZD9291, had closed its trials and was moving towards FDA approval. The second drug, CO-1686, also called rociletinib, had an open trial at Roswell Park Cancer Institute in Buffalo, NY. I met the initial qualifications and I have family in Rochester, just an hour and a half from Roswell. So, game on! How do...