Brain Tumour Research will fund an initiative called the Brain Tumour Research Novel Therapeutics Accelerator (N-TAB), in partnership with the Tessa Jowell Brain Cancer Mission (TJBCM).
The announcement was made today at the British Neuro-Oncology Society Conference by Dr Nicky Huskens, CEO of the TJBCM.
N-TAB is a brand new accelerator programme to review and provide guidance on the translation and development of novel drug treatments. It aims to bridge the gap between the promising research findings presented at conferences, published in journals and hailed as the basis for possible future treatments and cures, and the number of these findings which progress into successful clinical trials.
Guided by a unique multi-disciplinary international group of academic, industry drug development and regulatory experts, applicant researchers will receive bespoke feedback on the development path for therapeutics for brain tumour diseases.
The programme provides an infrastructure to ensure the most promising therapies reach patients as quickly as possible through a confidential review and go / no-go milestones. Applicants will have the opportunity to use the committee reports to support subsequent funding applications or discussions
The aim of each review is to identify potential pitfalls in clinical trial design and give independent, transparent advice in order to help the applicant position the candidate compound along a realistic and well-informed pathway to clinical trial and eventual registration.
It is hoped the programme will see more agents successfully enter into human trials, more research focused on drug discovery encouraged and stimulated, improved relationships with industry and academia, and de-risking of trials.
Dr Karen Noble, our Director of Research, Policy and Innovation and one of the key advisors on the programme, said: “We are delighted to be partnering with the Tessa Jowell Brain Cancer Mission on this initiative. A similar programme in neuromuscular diseases – which, like brain tumours, have large unmet needs and a limited number of patients available to be enrolled into clinical trials – has run successfully for a decade and has received extremely positive feedback from past applicants.
“Clinical trials are a key step in the translational pipeline of moving critical discovery research, like we are funding at our Centres of Excellence, from scientist’s bench to patient’s bedside. We hope that this programme will result in more of that basic research progressing successfully to clinical trials so that we can find new treatments and ultimately a cure for brain tumours.”
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