The University of Manchester and Cancer Research UK have joined the PRIME-ROSE project, a Europe-wide effort to boost patient access to precision cancer medicine (PCM).
The PRIME-ROSE* consortium consists of 24 partners, including nine beneficiaries and fifteen associated partners who will come together over the course of five years and work with regulators, policymakers, healthcare providers and patient advocacy groups to implement evidence-based PCM in routine clinical practice.
Approved by the European Commission**, PRIME-ROSE aims to bring together a network of similar clinical trials which are being implemented to broaden patient access to a wider range of innovative PCM treatments.
Cancer Research UK’s Centre for Drug Development, alongside the University of Manchester, are associate partners in the PRIME-ROSE consortium and represent the UK as the lead organisations running the DETERMINE trial.
The DETERMINE trial*** is a PCM platform trial open to adult, young adult and paediatric patients with any rare cancer type. Its unique design means that any treatment which appears to be working for patients on the trial will be submitted for review by the Cancer Drugs Fund (CDF)**** The intention is that the CDF team, working with NHS England Clinical Policy team, will then decide whether a period of data collection in the CDF is appropriate to assess if the drug could be used as a routine treatment option on the NHS for patients with this cancer type.
The cross-country collaboration provided by PRIME-ROSE will enable data aggregation and analysis from multiple trials which is important when working with rare cancers where amassing significant amounts of data is a challenge.
The Director of Cancer Research UK’s Centre for Drug Development, Dr Nigel Blackburn, said: “We are delighted to be joining a consortium of partners who share our drive to make potentially life-saving precision medicine drugs accessible to patients who need them.
“This provides an excellent opportunity to foster collaboration between our DETERMINE trial and similar trials across the EU, gathering vital data to support applications to make precision medicine drugs available to more patients in the UK.”
Dr Matthew Krebs, Chief Investigator for the DETERMINE trial at The University of Manchester and The Christie NHS Foundation Trust, said: “DETERMINE is an important new trial in the PCM space in the UK and provides crucial opportunity to explore the use of existing medicines in new cancer indications. Our collaboration with European colleagues within the PRIME-ROSE consortium will help speed up assessment of the role of these treatments across Europe and, together with regulating agencies, provide potential to bring new life -prolonging treatment options to patients with rare cancers
*Precision Cancer Medicine Repurposing System Using Pragmatic Clinical Trials
**The project is being funded by the European Commission Horizon Europe Mission on Cancer (grant no. 101104269)
***DETERMINE is led by the University of Manchester and is sponsored and managed by Cancer Research UK’s Centre for Drug Development. It is run in collaboration with the University of Birmingham, the Royal Marsden NHS Foundation Trust and the Christie NHS Foundation Trust. To date, 8 drugs from Roche and Novartis have been committed to the trial. www.cruk.org.uk/determine
****https://www.england.nhs.uk/cancer/cdf/
