Medidata announced that the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) supported the use of a Medidata Synthetic Control Arm® in a phase 3 registrational trial in recurrent glioblastoma (rGBM). This is a precedent setting acceptance of a hybrid external control (combining synthetic control arm patients with randomized patients) in a phase 3 trial in an indication that previously used traditional randomized controls. Medicenna Therapeutics Corp. will use a hybrid external control arm in a phase 3 registrational trial in recurrent glioblastoma, an aggressive form of brain cancer. The hybrid external control arm will reduce the number of patients required to be assigned to the control therapy in the trial, will provide rigorous scientific data, and will enable speedier development of the product. The phase 2 single arm trial preceding this phase 3 study was also enhanced by a synthetic control arm and estimates of the treatment effects based on the synthetic control arm were part of the briefing information provided to the FDA for justification of the use in phase 3.