• The Korean Journal of Applied Statistics
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• v.23 no.1
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• pp.139-150
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• 2010

In recent years, more generic drug products became available. The current regulation for assessing the bioequivalence of two drug formulations is based on the concept of average bioequivalence. This approach has been indicated to be insufficient for assessing switchability between two drug formulations and US FDA has adopted individual bioequivalence as one of the bioequivalence criterion since 2001. The US FDA recommends that individual bioequivalence be assessed based on $2\;{\times}\;4$ crossover design, while a $2\;{\times}\;3$ crossover design may be used as an alternative design to reduce the length and cost of the study. In this paper, a statistical procedure for assessment of individual bioequivalence under $3\;{\times}\;2$ crossover designs is proposed and some statistical points are discussed with $2\;{\times}\;3$ crossover design and $2\;{\times}\;3$ extra-reference design through simulation studies.

• Journal of the Korean Data and Information Science Society
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• v.28 no.4
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• pp.743-754
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• 2017

Assessing bioequivalence between original drug and generic drug is traditionally based on $2{\times}2$ crossover design. As bioequivalence trials for highly variable drugs are getting popular, the required sample size based on $2{\times}2$ crossover design would be very large, which might cause the ethical concerns. Regulatory agencies like EMA and MFDS recommended higher order crossover designs such as $2{\times}4$, $4{\times}2$ and $4{\times}4$ crossover designs. Alternatively, a $2{\times}3$ dual design may be recommended in terms of economical and ethical points of view in comparison with the $2{\times}4$ crossover design for highly variable drug. In this study, we consider some statistical characteristics of $2{\times}3$ dual design and propose statistical procedures for calculating sample size and assessing bioequivalence based on $2{\times}3$ dual design. We also discuss the proposed procedures from the perspective of newly revised bioequivalence guidance issued by MFDS.