Teaching and Consulting
After retiring from his position as Vice President of Bioinformatics at Allergan in 2015, Tsung-Hua (Thomas) Lin began teaching and consulting. As a statistics lecturer at UCI, he has taught courses in statistical methods (linear models and longitudinal data), biostatistics, experimental design, and statistical consulting. “The two aspects of teaching I enjoy most are interacting with the students and helping them learn,” he says. As a biopharma statistical consultant, Lin actively engages with companies conducting clinical projects at various stages, assisting with study designs, regulatory strategies, data analyses, and safety data monitoring.

Assisting with Clinical Trials
“My work as a consultant become particularly challenging during the COVID-19 pandemic, as the virus created uncertainties for clinical trials,” says Lin. Visits to clinics were replaced by house calls or virtual sessions, and patients sickened by the virus started withdrawing from studies. “Concerned by how these changes might affect the response rate for a particular trial, a sponsor decided to change the protocol by building in an interim efficacy analysis with a sample size re-estimation if the expected effect size is not as expected,” says Lin, “but this required unblinding the study randomization.” Lin helped the sponsor control the error rate and develop an operational procedure to control the access to and sharing of unblinded results.

Delivering Disease Treatments
In helping companies navigate through the various phases of their clinical trials, Lin has contributed to finding disease treatments. “In recent years, I have been involved in finding treatments for lung cancer, Alzheimer’s disease, schizophrenia, glaucoma, myopia and pterygium,” he says. “Through my consulting, I have the opportunity to help deliver treatments that save lives or improve people’s quality of life.” With Lin’s guidance, companies can more efficiently and effectively ensure such treatments have a real-world impact.