Cancer patients will have greater access to clinical trials of personalised therapies after a funding boost for specialised medical centres designed to make new treatments available as soon as possible.
Doctors and scientists at 29 experimental cancer medicine centres (ECMCs) in the UK are to receive £43m in fresh support over the next five years to trial new treatments for children and adults. These include drugs that encourage the immune system to attack tumours or prevent cancer cells from growing.
Trials across the centres will also assess how much better more personalised treatments work by analysing the genetic makeup of patients’ tumours and trialling therapies targeting the mutations that drive the disease.
Dr Iain Foulkes at Cancer Research UK said the expansion of the ECMC network would bring together “vast medical and scientific expertise” to help turn the latest scientific discoveries into clinical treatments.
“The ECMC network is delivering the cancer treatments of the future, bringing new hope to people affected by cancer. The trials taking place today will give the next generation the best possible chance of beating cancer,” he said.
Twelve of the centres specialise in cancers that affect children and young people and present “unique challenges” for clinicians, Foulkes said. “Working with our partners, this new funding will bring hope for more effective, personalised therapies for everyone affected by cancer,” he added.
Each year in the UK, about 4,200 children and young people are diagnosed with cancer. If early clinical trials show that new drugs are effective, the medicines can progress to become the treatments of the future for younger generations.
Among the potential treatments lined up for trials are drugs that unleash the power of the immune system. Some tumours produce proteins that disable T-cells capable of destroying cancer. But drugs called checkpoint inhibitors, which are already used to treat skin cancer and lung cancer, prevent this from happening, allowing the immune cells to re-engage the tumour. By sequencing the genetic makeup of tumours, doctors can identify which patients are most likely to benefit from the treatment.
Another group of drugs coming through trials at the centres are known as mTOR inhibitors. In some cancers, mTOR proteins are switched on, triggering cell growth and the development of new blood cells which are needed to supply the expanding tumour with nutrients. An industry-backed phase 2 trial of the drug vistusertib is under way in patients with recurrent ovarian cancer, supported by CRUK and the ECMC and run by Institute of Cancer Research and the Royal Marsden in London.
Adult cancer centres in Belfast, Cardiff, Glasgow, Birmingham and London are among those receiving £40.8m for trials over the next five years through the partnership between Cancer Research UK, the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) and the Little Princess Trust.
A further £2.2m will go to 12 paediatric ECMCs across the UK, boosting their total budget to £6.6m over five years. The funding will help employ new researchers, including nurses and data experts, at centres in Bristol, Cambridge, Cardiff, Glasgow, London and elsewhere.
Prof Lucy Chappell, chief executive of the NIHR, said the ECMCs were a “vital strategic investment” in the UK cancer research community. “Through this route, we enable more people to join trials that could help them,” she said. “The ECMC network will give access to brand new experimental treatments for patients, including children and young people, paving the way for these treatments to be used in the clinic one day.”
Phil Brace at the Little Princess Trust said: “Cancer remains the leading cause of death by disease amongst children and young people, and we are determined to change that. Since 2016, the Little Princess Trust has been funding research with the aim to improve outcomes with targeted treatments with less toxicity for children and young people with cancer. We have made progress, but there is more to do.”
