By Guest Blogger Dr. Lynne Davies, Operations Manager, International Cancer Research Program
It is with great excitement that I write to let you know about the upcoming webinar scheduled for Monday, April 19th at 10am ET, which aims to capture the very essence of why the International Cancer Research Partnership (ICRP) was created. ICRP is a unique alliance of cancer organizations working together to enhance global collaboration and strategic coordination of research. This webinar, entitled “How collaboration is advancing research and clinical care in pediatric cancer,” is jointly organized by ICRP, National Cancer Research Institute Children’s Group and Events team (UK), and Coalition Against Childhood Cancer (CAC2).
The webinar will feature speakers from CAC2 and ACCELERATE Innovation for Children and Adolescents with Cancer. These two international entities have successfully created infrastructure to unite the fragmented pediatric cancer research and clinical trial landscapes to push the field forward through their respective missions.
ACCELERATE was jointly created in 2015 by the European Society for Pediatric Oncology, Innovative Therapies for Children with Cancer in Europe, and European Network for Cancer Research in Children and Adolescents as a network of excellence and made a strategic decision in 2018 to strengthen international cooperation to improve global development of new pediatric oncology drugs and to become an organization spanning Europe, North America, and beyond. The webinar speaker, Professor Gilles Vassal is the acting ACCELERATE Chair and SIOPE Past President.
As Professor Vassal will describe, recent major breakthroughs in understanding cancer have led to the development of many innovative, effective therapies for adults. Over the last 20 years, the landscape of drug development for children and adolescents has significantly changed, as result of regulatory initiatives in the US (Best Pharmaceutical Act, 2002; Pediatric Research Equity Act, 2003) and in Europe (The European Paediatric Medicine Regulation, 2006). These regulations have paved the way to better medicines for children to in several pediatric specialties.
However, in pediatric oncology, needs are far from being addressed, with too many developments of relevant oncology drugs in children being waived or significantly delayed. Therefore, there is a need to accelerate the process of evaluating innovative therapies and introducing them in standard cancer care in children and adolescents. And this is the mission of ACCELERATE.
CAC2 was launched in 2011 (incorporated in 2013 as a 501c3 organization) to explore ways the community could work together to raise awareness and collaborate without duplicating the efforts of existing organizations. CAC2’s mission is to ensure that the childhood cancer community benefits from greater levels of coordinated action that leverage the unique strengths of its members, minimizes waste of precious resources and expertise and drives better outcomes for patients and their families. With an emphasis on optimizing research efforts for CAC2 members, the organization helps amplify the impact of funds raised by member organizations and supports collaborative partnerships between CAC2 members to ensure greater efficiency of funding availability for researchers and more impactful projects. The webinar speaker, Professor Vickie Buenger, is the current President of CAC2.
Professor Buenger will discuss a variety of ways that CAC2 supports its members who fund pediatric cancer research to quicken progress. Success in this arena necessitates coordinated action and broad–based collaboration to maximize the impact of available dollars on the most promising research projects. The work done by CAC2 members cannot effectively and efficiently be delivered without partnerships between like-minded nonprofit organizations.
Registration for this event is FREE and all audiences are welcomed including childhood cancer research funders from all countries (both ICRP members and non-members), clinicians, researchers and patient advocates. REGISTER HERE.
For more information about ICRP: www.icrpartnership.org
For more information about ACCELERATE: https://www.accelerate-platform.org/
For more information about the Coalition Against Childhood Cancer: https://cac2.org