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Last update of this page: 7th May 2025.

I am a mathematical statistician. Through more than 20 years in various biostatistical roles I have complemented my thorough theoretical background with expertise in biostatistics. I am passionate about applying this expertise to solve problems in pharmaceutical drug development.

CV Publications Talks Teaching

I am an Accredited European Statistician, a qualification issued by The Federation of European National Statistical Societies.

I co-lead the organizing committee of ISCB46 2025 in Basel, see video.

I co-organize the yearly EFSPI regulatory statistics workshop. Video looking back on the 2024 and video looking forward to the 2025 10th anniversary edition.

  • Statistical methods to optimize clinical trial designs
  • Advanced survival analysis
  • Probability of success
  • Estimands and causal inference
  • Nonparametric statistics

Kaspar Rufibach is a biostatistician who is passionate about supporting statisticians and drug developers to continuously challenge the status quo, with the aim of improving the drug development process, making it more efficient, and enabling access.

Kaspar has co-founded and co-leads the special interest group Estimands in oncology which has (as of August 2024) more than 100 members from 50 institutions globally. He has also co-founded and co-leads the EFSPI statistical methodology leader group which has 16 members from 16 companies. He regularly interacts with regulators globally on various joint projects.

Kaspar’s research interests are methods to optimize study designs, platform trials, advanced survival analysis, probability of success, estimands and causal inference, and estimation of treatment effects in subgroups.

Kaspar received training and worked as a statistician at the Universities of Bern, Stanford, and Zurich. During his PhD he gained some first experience in clinical research as a part-time statistician at the Swiss Institute for Applied Cancer Research. From 2012 until 2024 he worked at Roche in Basel before joining Merck KGaA in October 2024 (100% home-based) to co-lead its Advanced Biostatistical Science group.