New centre to fast-track new cancer treatments

23 April 2008

Barts and The London Centre for Experimental Cancer Medicine, based at St Bartholomew’s Hospital and Barts and The London School of Medicine and Dentistry in East London, is all set to fast-track new cancer treatments.
 
The Centre, which is officially launched on Wednesday 23 April 2008, is one of a network of nineteen hospital research units funded jointly by the Department of Health and Cancer Research UK to start testing drugs on patients at an early trial stage with the aim of reducing the time it takes for new cancer drug therapies to be licensed.
 
Other experimental units are being set up in London and in major cities in the UK, each with funding of £2 million over five years. Barts and The London’s ECM Centre is conducting trials for leukaemias, lymphomas and myelomas (cancers of the blood and lymphatic system), ovarian cancer, breast cancer, and head and neck cancer. There will be trials in the treatment of other more common cancers in the future.  
 
The funding covers clinical, laboratory and NHS infrastructure costs, enabling the centre to bring together laboratory research and clinical research. This means that research administration and laboratory testing can be covered by dedicated staff, allowing Barts and The London cancer doctors to do more research with patients and progress more quickly with investigating how drugs work.
 
Through the new ECM Centres, cancer patients who are no longer responding to existing drug therapies can have access to new medicines or new combinations of medicines. Patients’ safety is given top priority by administering a tiny dose of the drug to start with and only continuing the drug if there are no unacceptable side-effects.
 
Professor John Gribben, Centre Lead of Experimental Cancer Medicine at Barts and The London, welcomed research, medical school, hospital colleagues and funders to the launch.
 
He said: “Normally it takes ten years for a new cancer drug to be approved for use in the NHS. Through the experimental cancer medicine network we aim to reduce that time by half. We would argue that for patients who have cancer, ten years is too long to wait and we’ve got to cut down that period as much as possible.
 
“Ultimately the ECM Centre will improve the care we can offer to cancer patients and will keep the academic and clinical team at the forefront of international efforts to develop new treatment for all types of cancer.”
 
“The investment in the ECM Centre means top level endorsement from the Department of Health and Cancer Research UK of the importance in enrolling patients in clinical trials for drug development. It encourages even closer collaboration between Trust and Medical School so that we can translate exciting scientific discoveries that will make a difference more quickly to patients’ lives.”
 
Todd Gumbleton, clinical trial nurse co-ordinator has been specialising in clinical trials in haematological cancers for two years and has recently started to work with patients going through the more experimental trials.
 
“This is a very specialised field of nursing and it is exciting to be working with new trials and new drugs. I feel I am helping to offer something different to patients for whom nothing seems to be working and who are happy to be given a chance to keep them stable. It means working closely with them over a long period of time, up to five years, and often being with them one-to-one during their treatment.
 
“For me it is particularly interesting getting to know more about the drugs for haematological cancers, having worked on a general haematology ward before. Contact with other nurses in other cancer research centres around the UK and European network is good and I feel privileged to be able to associate with them at new trial meetings.”
 
Patients interested in entering trials at the Centre for Experimental Cancer Medicine must be referred by a doctor and should consult their GP or consultant in the first instance.
 
GPs and hospital doctors across north-east London and Essex and further afield can find information about referring patients to Barts and The London’s Centre for Experimental Cancer Medicine by visiting www.bartsandthelondon.nhs.uk/forgps and by calling 020 7882 8500.
 

For further information, please contact:

Alexandra Fernandes
Deputy Head of Communications
Queen Mary, University of London
Tel: +44 (0) 20 7882 7910
email: a.fernandes@qmul.ac.uk

Notes to Editors:

• The Orchid charity funds a men's cancer Clinical Trials Unit, which performs a number of studies in testis and prostate cancer. This clinical trials unit will now intergrate with the Centre for Experimental Cancer Medicine to enhance this research.
• Further details about Barts and The London Centre for Experimental Cancer Medicine can be found on www.bartsandthelondon.nhs.uk/CancerCentre/ and www.cancer.qmul.ac.uk/research/cemc
• Further details about the Experimental Cancer Medicine network on www.ecmcnetwork.org.uk. Patient information on clinical trials can also be found on cancerhelp.org.uk and cancerbacup.org.uk
• Barts and The London was selected for the funding from Cancer Research UK and the Department of Health following a competitive bidding process which culminated in an international review panel awarding grants based on scientific and clinical excellence.
• The quality of services provided by Barts and The London NHS Trust has been rated as excellent for the second consecutive year by independent health watchdog, the Healthcare Commission. Barts and The London is the only major teaching hospital in the capital to have achieved an ‘excellent’ rating two years running and is the only hospital in East London to be awarded the top rating. There were just fewer than 780,000 attendances at the Trust’s three hospitals – Barts in the City, The London Chest Hospital in Bethnal Green and The Royal London Hospital in Whitechapel – last year.
• Barts and The London School of Medicine and Dentistry offers international levels of excellence in research and teaching while serving a population of unrivalled diversity amongst which cases of diabetes, hypertension, heart disease, TB, oral disease and cancers are prevalent, within east London and the wider Thames Gateway.  Through partnership with our linked trusts, notably Barts and The London NHS Trust, and our associated University Hospital trusts – Homerton, Newham, Whipps Cross and Queen’s – the School’s research and teaching is informed by an exceptionally wide ranging and stimulating clinical environment.

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