$10 Billion Deal, page-13313

there’s nothing unusual about the nasal swabs as an objective in this trial. Check out the molnupiravir and paxlovid phase 3 Covid trials (papers available online), they both did swabs for pcr testing of viral load.
Also endpoints aren’t agreed between sponsor and Cro. CRO generally has nothing to do with agreeing trial design. Cro executes the trial it is given by the sponsor (BIT), for which they get paid. They provide a service, that’s it. People need to forget about the Cro (that’s if BIT even used one).
The issue with the trial is not the choice of endpoints or Cro, nor the fact it failed. The issue is the company failing to disclose material information (the trial outcome) in a timely way.