Hello everyone,
We were delighted to convene an Industry Roundtable this week to discuss the challenges of translating discovery research in the laboratory into clinical trials for brain tumour patients. This was a first of its kind for our charity and we were able to draw on our expertise and stakeholder relationships across the UK Life Sciences ecosystem. We will be building on these conversations to help shape our future policy work.
If you have personal experience of clinical trials – or challenges accessing them – please reach out to katherine.dew@braintumourresearch.org. Your insights will help inform our next steps. The event was attended by experts from the pharmaceutical industry, biotechnology companies, the NHS and Government.
Brain tumour patients are less likely to be enrolled in a clinical trial than patients with other cancers and trial delivery lags behind other disease areas in the UK. Chaired by Dr Karen Noble, Director of Research, Policy and Innovation at Brain Tumour Research, alongside Dr Amit Aggarwal, Executive Director of Medical Affairs and Strategic Partnerships at the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry (ABPI), the roundtable aimed to get views from across the life sciences sector about why this is the case – and importantly, what are the potential solutions.
You can learn more about the discussion by reading our Latest News on the subject. The next step will be a set of recommendations that we can take to Government to ensure that the life science ecosystem in this country is truly set up to make a difference for brain tumour patients.
Upcoming parliamentary event – we need your support
On Tuesday 3 March from 14:30 to 16:00, we are partnering with The Brain Tumour Charity to host a drop-in event in Parliament for Brain Tumour Awareness Month. We will be speaking with Parliamentarians to share the challenges faced by brain tumour patients and to ensure they understand the need for our campaign priorities for increased investment in research.
Please write to your local MP, sharing your story, to encourage them to attend the drop-in, whilst cc’ing jana.abdalrahman@braintumourresearch.org, who can follow up with more detail.
Karen, Hugh, Katherine and Jana