I wonder if this oxymoronic phrase could help understand the culture of Anomal Pharm, where an oddly non-statistical form of randomization seems to be advanced, in language such as:
“And so the purpose of randomization is not necessarily to establish that one dose of the drug is superior to another dose in a statistical way, or establish statistical non-inferiority between the two doses, but really to have trials that are sufficiently sized so that we can interpret these dose-efficacy and dose-toxicity relationships, and use that information to guide overall decision-making.”
— Mirat Shah
Perhaps a similar spirit is revealed in a paper by Iasonos & O’Quigley [1], where we are instructed that
The goal of randomization is to reduce biases due to known but uncontrollable factors such as prior treatment, age, gender and/or comorbidities.
- Iasonos A, O’Quigley J. Randomised Phase 1 clinical trials in oncology. Br J Cancer. 2021;125(7):920-926. doi:10.1038/s41416-021-01412-y