There are no bad anticancer agents, only bad clinical trial designs--twenty-first Richard and Hinda Rosenthal Foundation Award Lecture.

Unfortunately, the vast majority (90%) of new anticancer agents designed in the laboratory never make it into routine clinical use. The hypothesis of this lecture is that many new agents fail in the clinic because the appropriate clinical trial(s) that could exploit the attributes of the new agent are not performed. An appreciation that both bench and clinical investigations are difficult endeavors should aid in improving clinical trial designs and give the best chance for new agents to be added to our therapeutic armamentarium.