Beyond {gtsummary}: How the {crane} Package Extends the Framework for Pharmaceutical Reporting
Talk@R in Pharma 2025
🗓️ November 5, 2025 08:40AM - 09:00AM PST
Description
{gtsummary} has become the most-used R package for clinical tables in the R ecosystem, winning awards from the American Statistical Association and Posit. Building on this foundation, we created {crane}, an open-source extension that facilitates reporting requirements in the pharmaceutical space. Because {crane} and {gtsummary} are built upon Analysis Results Datasets (ARDs), study teams can take advantage of this foundation that streamlines the QC process and allows for simple re-use of calculated results in subsequent reporting.
In this session we show how: (1) a vanilla {gtsummary} script instantly upgrades when {crane} is loaded; (2) ARD-based outputs make QC a straightforward operation; (3) LLMs can summarise the language-agnostic ARD results for medical writers in seconds. You’ll leave with a blueprint of how to adapt {crane} for your reporting needs or (or roll your own) and shorten table turnaround on day one.
Slides
Instructor
Daniel D. Sjoberg (he/him) is a Senior Principal Data Scientist at Genentech. Previously, he was a Lead Data Science Manager at the Prostate Cancer Clinical Trials Consortium, and a Senior Biostatistician at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York City. He enjoys R package development, creating many packages available on CRAN, R-Universe, and GitHub. He’s a co-organizer of rainbowR (a community that supports, promotes and connects LGBTQ+ people who code in the R language) and of the R Medicine Conference. His research interests include adaptive methods in clinical trials, precision medicine, and predictive modeling. Daniel is the winner of the 2021 American Statistical Association (ASA) Innovation in Statistical Programming and Analytics award.