Optimal allocation designs for a multi-arm multi-objective clinical trial

Clinical trials have typically several goals, which can be divided into two types. The first type concerns the future patients that could potentially benefit from the treatments under consideration, and the second pertains to the health of the patients in the trial. For the former, it is important to correctly identify the best treatment, while the latter emphasizes the ethical requirements of the trial. This conflict is called “individual versus collective ethics” in Baldi Antognini and Giovagnoli [4], and “treatment versus experimentation dilemma” in Bartroff and Lai [5] and Azriel, Mandel and Rinott [1].