The Office of National Statistics report for April - June 2014 showed UK unemployment rate at lowest for 6 years!

Official figures state the unemployment rate fell to 6.4% in June to April this year, the lowest since late 2008.

The number of people unemployed fell by 132,000 to 2.08 million and the average wage excluding bonuses increased by 0.6% in the year to June, the slowest rise since records began in 2001.

Including bonuses, wages fell 0.2%, the first fall since 2009. The Office for National Statistics said average wage rises were affected by an unusually high number of employees deferring bonus payments until after the top rate of tax was cut from 50p to 45p last year, which have skewed year-on-year comparisons.

The national statistics show that approximately 40% of the increase in employment levels in the UK over the past year was among people who were not born in the UK. The number of UK-born workers increased by 502,000 and the number of workers born overseas went up by 326,000.

Employment from ex soviet countries such as Poland, Lithuania and hungry increased by 178,000 in a year. which is an increase of more than a quarter since they joined the EU in 2004. 

New statistics show that unemployment has now fallen below the eurozone average of 11.5%, though it's still higher than the entire EU average of 10.2%.

To see all the current job opportunities that Kubo Recruitment have in the UK, Europe and the US please visit www.kuborecruitment.com

Part 2- Annual leave...what to do with it?!

This week I decided to look in  to how people spend their time away from the office. 

For many people, the thought of a long awaited holiday and choosing where to go opens up so many prospects; Shall we go to a beach? Shall we travel a bit? Shall we see a bit of culture? But not all annual leave is used up sunning ourselves on the beach. Many working families need to use their annual leave to spend time with their children during the school holidays and cover child care while there is no school or family they can call on. 

So you have used your annual leave on taking time off for personal appointments, moving house or your best friend's wedding and you have one precious week left? So where do people go?

A new survey by the European Commission found that EU residents generally stay in their home country during their time off—57% of people in the EU last year took a trip within their own country. More than 80% of Greeks, Croatians and Italians took time off close to home in 2013, while Maltese, Belgians, and Luxembourgers were much more keen to go abroad, with fewer than 30% reporting that they took a domestic holiday last year.

The image below shows where most people in Europe choice to go on holiday. Interestingly it shows that people tend to go to the next closest country to them.

During my research I discovered that 36% of Americans do not own a passport! But when you think that the USA is the size of a continent you can see why! If you want sun and sand you go to Florida or California, if you want snow, Colorado or Utah! They have every different type of terrain and climate so, practically speaking at least, there is less need to travel abroad. 

So has all this got you thinking about what you will be doing with your annual leave this year? Let us know your thoughts!

Part 1 Annual leave- How do Holiday entitlements vary across the globe?

We all enjoy taking time off to spend time with our family and friends for the odd day or a couple of weeks at a time, but how does the holiday entitlement vary between countries and how does it affect how people use their holiday?

 

 

 Finland, Brazil, France and Germany are at the top, guaranteeing six weeks of time off including some bank holidays, with most other European countries enjoying 4-5 weeks holiday off a year.

In Hong Kong the entitlement is only 7 days for your first 2 years of service and India and Japan the entitlement on average is 10-12 days a year!

What I found most surprising was America have 0 yes that's ZERO days statutory minimum! It is left to the employers to offer paid holiday as part of the benefits package. Larger companies will typically offer between 10 and 20 working days, depending on the company and years of service. In addition to this some may offer a number of paid public holidays, typically 6-8, although smaller employers may offer no holiday at all! The average number of paid holiday days offered by private employers is 10 days after 1 year of service, 14 days after 5 years, 17 days after 10 years, and 19 days after 20 years!

So how does this affect how people take their holiday entitlement?
Some U.S. companies don't like employees taking off more than one week at a time. Others expect them to be on call or check their e-mail even when they're lounging on the beach or taking a hike in the mountains. In Europe its common for people to take off 3 consecutive weeks during the summer. Having said that some companies in Europe still have the summer shut down during the hot months and employees are told when to take time off.

The way America views annual leave and the way Europe sees it poses lots of questions. Is it healthier for staff to take a break and relax for a couple of weeks and come back refreshed, or is it better to take odd days here and there and avoid the build up in work (and therefore stress) that awaits you when you arrive back in the office after 2 weeks away?

The other question that springs to mind when thinking about the way people take holiday, is that if you are constantly thinking about work and not taking genuine time off, does your home life suffer? Or are you more likely to burn out quickly professionally?

In part 2 of my blog I will be investigating how different people across the world choose to spend that precious annual leave.

www.kuborecruitment.com

Kubo are proud to sponsor Tom Carlon at MK lightning for the 2nd year running!

As we approach the upcoming new hockey season Kubo Recruitment are proud to sponsor Tom Carlon at MK Lighting following his success last year!

Last year Kubo Recruitment sponsored Forward Tom Carlon as he debuted after signing with MK Lighting in 2013




Last season saw Tom Carlon scoring crucial goals for the team and playing a major part in the team’s success placing them 4th in the premier league at the end of last season!







Kubo look forward to continuing to support the team next season and wish them every success for the start of September!

Guest writer Thomas Zwingers part II- Ask the Experts: Late Phase Oncology Trial Design

Prinicipal Biostatistician Thomas Zwingers hosted Part II of his German-language webinar "Statistical Considerations in Oncology". Part II focuses on statistical methods for early decisions in Phases II and III.

 

According to expert biostatistician Thomas Zwingers, how can adaptive trial design be a method for the future of cancer research? 

 

During Phase III development, efficacy of the drug should be confirmed. Many new products have to find a very specific mechanism of effectiveness, so therefore subpopulations are necessary. Flexible study designs that allow for early termination and the use of fewer patients can be a successful solution for determining clinical efficacy. In oncology trials, we need to take into consideration differentiating factors such as slow patient recruitment, the importance of patient genotype, the use of various treatment combinations and the fact that the primary endpoint is overall survival time or time to progression. 

 

Adaptive Designs in late phase cancer research offer the possibility to make modifications to a study while in progress on the basis of new information pulled from accumulated data. While it is well know that there is the possibility to re-estimate the number of patients needed for a study based on observational data in interim analysis, it is less known that design can allow objectives to be achieved in one study that would normally require the scheduling of two distinct studies, so called "seamless Phase II/III designs".

 

Seamless Phase II/III designs combine two sequential and separate studies into one study and allows the use of collected information in the first stage to adapt the design in the second stage. The advantages of in this design are a reduction in overall time in the development of a drug, fewer patients required, and the early availability of long-term safety data. 

 

Another interesting possibility of an adaptive design is to select the right target population for the drug. This is of special interest in the development of highly specific cancer drugs, which are only effective in selected patient populations - for example, monoclonal antibodies. An adaptive study in Phase II/III may allow for the selection of the most promising target population in the first stage for the second stage.

 

Based on CROS NT's experience in oncology trials, their expert biostatisticians recommend the following for late phase adaptive trials:

- Budget more time for planning of an adaptive design as compared to a standard design
- Interact with regulatory authorities in the planning phase especially for Phase II/III studies
- Use simulations to calculate the power of the sample size and the probability of success
- Evaluate whether or not to stop the recruitment of patients for the interim analyses
- Schedule frequent monitoring visits in order to provide as much data as possible for the interim analyses

About Thomas Zwingers

In Thomas' current role, he provides pharmaceutical, biotechnology and medical device companies with statistical methodology advice pertaining to trial design, conduct and reporting including regulatory submissions. Thomas has been working in the clinical trial environment since 1980 in project team management and statistical analysis. He has particular expertise in Adaptive Designs and Bayesian Framework, Meta-Analysis and Non-Inferiority trials with therapeutic expertise in Oncology, Respiratory and Dermatology.

How have our attitudes to life and work changed through the Generations?

I came across the above on Linkedin a couple of weeks ago and it got me thinking about how our expectations have changed through the generations. 

When you look at the attitude towards careers you can clearly see how much peoples views on work have changed and people are no longer loyal to one company. But why is that? is that because people feel they are worth more and want to work for a company that can see that or is that because loyalty isn't rewarded as much anymore by companies? Maybe we all strive for change and progression and we need a bit of variety in our lives? What ever the reason, it seems the days of people staying with a company for 30 years are a thing of the past. 

One thing that stood out to me was the communication preference (above). Generation Y which is the generation that is now entering the work place for the first time are more likely to send an email or text message then have a face to face meeting. You can't really grasp someones tone over an email and things can get misconstrued and problems can arise with how different people can take an email, which was not intended to cause offence, but does. There was that case years ago where someone took their boss to a tribunal over his use of capital letters in an email, but then with an email you do have an email thread so can keep a record of what was said and when, so i guess there are benefits to the old and new way of doing things. 

I think one thing that you can take from this when you look at our "Aspirations" (above) is that whether its in bricks and mortar or careers, our home life and the feeling of security is still the most important thing to us. 

www.kuborecuitment.com

Introduction to Adaptive Trials in Oncology: What makes oncology different from other areas

Adaptive Designs have been increasingly gaining attention during the past years. These designs provide greater flexibility for Investigators/pharmaceutical companies by using an iterative process of:

- Collecting Data
- Analyzing the collected data
- Making decisions on the study design parameters according to the outcome of the analysis; and then
- Collecting additional data

More and more, Investigators and pharmaceutical companies use the advantages of adaptive designs over traditional, fixed designs in order to:

- Decrease the necessary sample size in trials
- Increase the probability of success in each trial
- Shorten the development process time of a new drug

The application of adaptive designs in oncology trials can prove challenging which is due to the nature of this medical field and its unique characteristics which makes it different from other therapeutic areas. It is not a single characteristic which makes oncology different, but rather the simultaneous occurrence of the following items:

- Long timelines to reach clinical endpoints. The ultimate endpoint for registration of a new drug is still the "Overall Survival Time". Surrogate endpoints like "response rates" or "time to progression" are often used but mostly as secondary endpoints or in earlier phases of the development process.

- The use of treatment combinations. Many oncology indications are treated using a combination of either surgery or radiotherapy and chemotherapy where most chemotherapy treatments are composed of various drug combinations, e.g in leukemia up to 8 different drugs are used.

- The number of partially related diseases. Although all cancers share the common trait of "abnormal growing cells", the heterogeneity of histological and immunological features of each disease is extensive.

- The importance of disease sub-types and/or genotypes. Even within each disease entity, different genotypes of immunologic surface makers can determine or rule out treatment success.

- Regimen modifications during treatment. As anti-cancer drugs are highly toxic, treatment modifications due to adverse reactions is very common and make it difficult to create a population of homogenously treated patients. This also has an impact on the interpretation of the clinical outcome.

- The high impact of the disease on patient life.

- The high costs of treatment. The average cost of cancer treatments range from approximately $5,000 USD per year to over $100,000 USD per year for patients with brain tumors.

- Slow Recruitment. Except for the most common tumor types - breast cancer, colorectal cancer and lung cancer - in most other indications, the number of patients is usually low within each center, thus resulting in slow recruitment of trials with a multitude of centers. 

In this highly diversified area of drug development, adaptive designs offer features which enable Investigators to find effective drugs more quickly for the benefit of the patients.

This blog was guest written for Kubo Recruitment by Thomas Zwingers, Senior Director for Consultancy Services and Senior Biostatistician for CROS NT.

About Thomas Zwingers

In Thomas' current role, he provides pharmaceutical, biotechnology and medical device companies with statistical methodology advice pertaining to trial design, conduct and reporting including regulatory submissions. Thomas has been working in the clinical trial environment since 1980 in project team management and statistical analysis. He has particular expertise in Adaptive Designs and Bayesian Framework, Meta-Analysis and Non-Inferiority trials with therapeutic expertise in Oncology, Respiratory and Dermatology.