The Institute for Cancer Research’s goal is to find better treatment options for patients who have failed standard therapies in creating a platform for innovative treatments and approaches for treating cancer through supporting investigators, researchers and companies working on major breakthroughs in science.
The foundation will focus on developing trials and generating data for an expanded patient population including the elderly and patients who have failed other standard therapies. The foundation will promote a unique approach where the trials will be tailored to the patient. At the core of the Foundation is a shift away from the current trial methodologies which exclude sick populations and exclude populations which have failed current therapies.
The Foundation envisages small trials which are not focused around one central drug but trials which support a combination approach incorporating chemotherapy, targeted biologic therapy and immunotherapy and focused on the patient. It is this differentiation which will allow the Foundation to bring innovation and hope to patients, and allow for the development of more effective and less toxic therapies for patients with advanced cancers.
Early stage research has inherent risk making it difficult in obtaining funding for potentially life changing solutions. Funding investigators and small companies with innovative and novel approaches to treating diseases in preclinical, phase I and investigator initiated studies is one way we can create significant opportunity and potential for developing innovative treatments.
Underpinnings of the Foundation
Objectives of the Foundation
- Develop treatment options for cancer patients who have failed standard treatment and whom are generally not candidates for conventional clinical trials.
- Develop more effective and less toxic treatment options for cancer patients by combining conventional chemotherapy drugs at lower doses, targeted therapies, and immunotherapy in order to maximize synergistic interactions.
- Develop clinical trials that are tailored to benefit a refractory and advanced disease patient population.
- Collaborate with researchers and early stage companies to bring new innovative treatments into the clinic.
Focus
Foundation intends to focus in the following areas:
- Report the efficacy and safety of lower dose combination chemotherapy; utilize existing approved drugs in combination at lower dose levels to reverse resistance, maximize synergy leading to more effective and less toxic treatment regimens.
- Targeted therapy – utilizing genomic and molecular profiling to determine the optimal targeted drugs to combine with low-dose combination chemotherapy.
- Immunotherapy – explore, develop and design small trials to activate, expand, and direct immune responses to specific types of tumors.
- Personalizing treatment based on patient and tumor specific data.