Cambridge key to faster pancreatic cancer treatment

And one of the drugs key to the initiative is Cambridge blockbuster Olaparib, discovered by Steve Jackson's lab at Cambridge University  and commercialised by KuDOS which was acquired by locally-headquartered global influencer AstraZeneca.

Overall, the ‘Just in Time’ scheme run by the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR), could reduce the time needed to set up a clinical trial from months to just days. And, if successful, the scheme could allow more patients to benefit from access to clinical trials at hospitals closer to home.

For the first time, the scheme is being piloted in the PemOla trial, a precision medicine study exploring a combination immunotherapy using pembrolizumab and olaparib to treat pancreatic cancers that have a large number of genetic changes.

The trial is being led by Dr Pippa Corrie, consultant medical oncologist at Addenbrooke’s Hospital and a researcher at the Department of Oncology, University of Cambridge.

Pancreatic cancer is one of the hardest cancers to diagnose and treat. Despite much research, there has been little progress in improving patient outcomes in the last 50 years. It is one of the 10 most common forms of cancer, but only 1 in 5 patients diagnosed in the early stages of the disease and only five per cent of pancreatic cancer patients survive more than 10 years beyond diagnosis.

Precision medicine has transformed the treatment of many cancers, yet little has changed for people with the pancreatic form. Treatments beyond standard surgery and chemotherapy aimed at combatting the disease are very limited.