My understanding is that it isn’t MSB who are responsible for...

My understanding is that it isn’t MSB who are responsible for halting or continuing the trial.

As far as I can tell it is the Data Monitoring Committee who analyse the data at the appropriate interim stages (1st one at 30% at 30 days). They can recommend that the trial continue or be halted early due to overwhelming efficacy, futility or other reasons such as safety issues.

As the trial is being run by Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, I expect it is them who would receive the DMC recommendation and be responsible for acting on it. While theoretically they may be able act counter a DMC recommendation, it would seem like a fairly extreme act that would not be done lightly if it is ever done.

Personally, I’m curious as to the internal functioning/scheduling of the DMC. As an outsider, the world of biomedical research seems to generally move at snail pace. The Covid-19 pandemic has seen our ARDS trial move at an extraordinary pace. Could it be that the standard ways of scheduling/organising a DMC meeting haven’t sped up as much as the other trial components? The medical world, especially in the US, is stretched and struggling at the moment. Could it be that we’re well past 30% at 30 days... and are rapidly approaching full enrolment, but the DMC haven’t managed to get their act together and have a meeting?

Does anyone know how flexible/adaptable DMCs are? For instance, what happens if a key members are unavailable (eg sick in hospital with Covid-19 themselves)?