Two leading non-profits combine efforts to accelerate cancer immunotherapy for patients globally Monday, January 08, 2018 The Cancer Research Institute (CRI) and the Canadian Cancer Trials Group (CCTG) have announced a multi-year collaboration to develop and conduct clinical trials in immunotherapy. Immunotherapy agents are already changing the standard of care for many cancer types, and the landscape continues to grow with over 940 immunotherapy agents in clinical development. There is an urgent need to collaborate on clinical trials and translational research and to unite leading experts. Comprehensive clinical trials, especially basket and umbrella platforms, are needed to efficiently evaluate emerging novel therapies that will hopefully lead to faster approval of better treatments for people with cancer around the world. "This collaboration is what great partnerships look like—uniting CRI's cancer immunology expertise with the clinical research expertise and global footprint at CCTG, which I've observed is the fastest and most effective cooperative group worldwide. Together, and with our combined global expert network, we will accelerate innovation for patients," said Aiman Shalabi, chief medical officer, Clinical Accelerator, CRI. CRI, a US non-profit organization that funds research internationally, has a 65-year legacy of supporting the discovery and development of immunotherapy for all types of cancer. Its unique clinical program, the Anna-Maria Kellen Clinical Accelerator, brings together non-profit-academia-industry partnerships designed to develop and organize the clinical study of combination cancer immunotherapies. CCTG is a non-profit cancer research cooperative that designs and conducts clinical trials to improve the practice of treating cancer and to enhance the quality of life for cancer survivors. CCTG is recognized as being one of the most impactful and influential academic groups, and has a proven track record in rapid and efficient conduct of studies across an extensive network in Canada and internationally, many of which have been practice-changing. "Global collaboration and partnerships are essential to the success of clinical trials and critical in moving the cancer research agenda forward. We are proud to leverage the strengths of both CCTG and CRI in this strategic collaboration to bring important improvements in cancer therapies to the patients that need them," said Janet Dancey, M.D., FRCPC, director, CCTG.
