Delivering Cancer Research Why you should come to the UK

We can provide LeadershipWe have seven national clinical leads who have a wealth of experience and can provide specific advice on: early phase clinical studies, late phase and international trials, radiotherapy, cancer surgery, studies involving children/young people and community based supportive/palliative care research.

We work in close partnership with the National Cancer Research Institute (NCRI) which supports 18 Clinical Studies Groups which comprise of leading academic clinicians and researchers with the expertise needed to develop pipelines of high quality research studies for all cancer sites.

The UK is a leading member of the European Organisation for Research and Treatment in Cancer (EORTC) enabling studies, to be coordinated across several countries, eg of rare cancers through the International Rare Cancers Initiative (IRCI).

Access to patients

There are around 980 cases of cancer diagnosed each day in the UK’s National Health Services with breast, prostate, lung and bowel cancers accounting for around half of these. Around 1,800 children and 2,500 teenagers and young adults are diagnosed with cancer each year.

The NIHR CRN is committed to offering as many of these patients the opportunity to participate in high quality research studies. In 2015/16, 18% of cancer patients were involved in clinical research studies, half of these being interventional trials. In the UK, research is embedded in the clinical treatment for almost all children with cancer.

The UK has an international reputation for cancer research and has, through the National Institute of Health Research (NIHR) Clinical Research Network (CRN), a highly developed and effective infrastructure to enable the timely set-up and delivery of cancer research studies across all of the cancer sites as well as in cross-cutting areas such as supportive/palliative and primary care, psycho-social oncology and survivorship.

Each of the 15 Local Clinical Research Networks, which cover the whole of England, has identified Cancer Subspecialty Champions and this community of around 200 research-active clinicians work at both local and national levels to deliver cancer research studies to time and target in the NHS.

Delivering research to

make patients, and the NHS, better

www.nihr.ac.uk CRN137

Study deliveryThe Cancer Specialty covers over 2,000 diseases, encompassing solid tumour oncology and malignant haematology in adults, children and young people.

Our track record:

• World-leading rates of cancer patient participation in clinical research;• An average of around 99,000 participants recruited into cancer studies every year over the last six years;• Recruitment into 924 studies (two thirds of which were interventional studies) in 2015/16 across 288 NHS Trusts;• Double the number of patients (over 5,000) recruited into commercial studies in 2016/17 compared with 2012/13;• 6 first global patients in 2016/17 in commercial studies (bladder, breast, renal and three in lymphoma).

CollaborationCRN Cancer works closely with a wide range of stakeholders, notably the many cancer research charities in the UK, the Experimental Cancer Medicine Centres, specialist centres (such as the European Neuroendocrine Tumour Society centres of excellence) and Clinical Trials Units to deliver a continual pipeline of high quality research studies which improve the diagnosis, treatment, care and outcomes of cancer patients.

In collaboration with Cancer Research UK, we have established a Cancer Industry Alliance to promote academic partnerships with individual pharmaceutical companies to optimise early phase testing of new anticancer therapies which do not form part of the company’s main research and development plans.

Case study: FOCUS4-CA collaborative approach between the NIHR, CRUK, MRC and Astra Zeneca has powerfully demonstrated how a basic research finding can be rapidly translated

into clinical trials. Within 2 years of the discovery that mutated SETD2 genes in cancer cells made them susceptible to targeted therapies, a new arm (FOCUS4-C) of the existing FOCUS4 trial was opened providing the opportunity to get this exciting science tested clinically in bowel cancer patients. Recruitment is open in 100 hospitals across the country supported by the NIHR Clinical Research Network. The CRUK/NIHR-funded FOCUS4 trial (Molecular selection of therapy in colorectal cancer) opened in 2014 and is designed to be adaptive so that new drugs can be tested quickly, helping patients benefit from new discoveries sooner.

BILCAPA randomised clinical trial evaluating adjuvant chemotherapy with capecitabine compared to expectant treatment alone following surgery for biliary tract cancer has recently been successfully completed. This CRUK-funded study recruited 435 patients including 395 from 43 NIHR-supported sites in England. The results are about to be published in a leading journal

Find out more You can visit our website at:www.nihr.ac.uk/cancer

Contact us Access our Study Support Service online at:www.supportmystudy.nihr.ac.uk

or get in touch:

Phone: 00 44 113 34 34 555Email: supportmystudy@nihr.ac.uk