Wolfgang Fecke, Executive Director at Association of European Cancer Leagues, shared a post on LinkedIn:
“The outcome of ESMO‘s EISF project on ‘European inequalities in accessing oncological clinical trials‘ was discussed in the European Parliament today, chaired by Romana Jerkovic (Vice-Chair SANT Committee).
The data clearly show very successful countries in conducting clinical trials (e.g. Denmark, Belgium, Spain, Ireland) while often larger countries with bigger economies stay far behind – Germany or the UK are prominent examples. However, the most striking case is Luxembourg which, as probably the richest (per capita) country in Europe now, does not seem to be at all an attractive place for doing medical research.
Teresa Amaral (ICANS, Strasbourg) highlighted the significant administrative burden for researchers as one important reason for delays in trial approvals and patient recruitment. Joanna Fratczak-Kazana (Alivia – Fundacja Onkologiczna) represented the voice of cancer patients and asked why Poland underperforms in early clinical trials while clearly having the infrastructure to support much larger, late-stage trials. What are the reasons? And more importantly, which lessons can be learned from the ‘better’ countries?
Bruno Jolain (Roche) and Asif Khan (Novartis) provided the important industry perspective, pointing out that delays in trial approval times are particularly detrimental in early stage trials. Will the time come that a patient can be alerted by their own primary care doctor that a possibly life-saving clinical trial is about to recruit patients? And are approval times of 5-10 days in Australia really comparable to the already ambitious 20 days in Belgium, or 60 days in Poland?
The Association of European Cancer Leagues will do their utmost in helping to reduce hurdles for cancer patients in getting access to innovative clinical cancer trials.”
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