Announcement
Southampton hosts a NIHR Biomedical Research Centre (BRC) with a focus on respiratory disease and our CRUK Clinical Trial Unit (CTU) there has also previously developed some non-cancer lung studies as it is also a NIHR CTU support funded CTU. Southampton CTU has been contributing its CRUK/NIHR staff expertise in study design, development and/or delivery of a number of COVID-19 trials
Technicians, admin staff, QA managers and various pieces of equipment in the Liverpool ECMC have been re-deployed to support the UK Clinical Characterisation protocol, part of ISARIC-4C.
A new report, published in the British Journal of Cancer, outlines recommendations for the effective delivery of Complex Innovative Design (CID) trials in the UK and Europe for the first time.
In February we had the second ECMC Steering Committee. This Committee is a key part of the governance for the network and is designed to ensure that the funders and the network are getting appropriate and timely input on the current activity of the adult and paediatric networks and to provide an independent steer on what the future should look like.
In February 2018, Combinations Alliance supported a two day meeting organised by AACR, FDA, and ASTRO to build on the work done by the joint working group in their landmark paper published in 2016 to boost the number of novel drugs being successfully registered in combination with radiotherapy. Since radiotherapy is one of the principal curative treatment options for patients with cancer, this is a very important initiative to improve treatment further.
Following the evaluation of the success of the Phase 1 of Radiation Assurance and a subsequent period of reviewer recruitment, the HRA have opened Phase 2 of Radiation Assurance and are now accepting all cardiology, neurology, oncology and rheumatology studies taking place in the NHS/HSC.
Following a period of process development and successful reviewer recruitment, the HRA have opened Phase I of Pharmacy Assurance to all Phase I - II/III oncology studies taking place in the NHS.
Following the success of Phase 1 of Radiation Assurance, the Health Research Authority (HRA) are inviting further Medical Physical Experts (MPEs) and Clinical Radiation Experts (CREs) to become registered reviewers in preperation for the launch of Phase 2 on Monday 12 November 2018.
The Health Research Authority (HRA) are currently inviting Pharmacists and Pharmacy Technicians to register to become HRA Pharmacy Assurance Reviewers.
The ECMC Programme Office has collated the responses from the adult ECMCs and produced a report which showcases the amount of work being done in this area across the Network. Our main aim in doing this is to support and promote the sharing of knowledge, learning and good practice across the ECMC network and beyond.