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First clinical cancer trials research centre

12 December 2016

Dean John Fraser

Dean of the Medical and Health Sciences Faculty, Professor John Fraser

New Zealand cancer patients will have greater access to new treatments through clinical trials, thanks to a major donation towards a new research unit which is the first step towards an Integrated Cancer Centre.

The Centre is a joint initiative between the University of Auckland’s Faculty of Medical and Health Sciences and the Auckland District Health Board’s (ADHB) Regional Cancer and Blood Service, involving oncology clinicians and researchers working at Auckland City Hospital.

The anonymous $1.4 million donation will establish New Zealand’s first specialist cancer clinical trials research unit - an oncology Phase 1 Clinical Trials Research Unit - and contributes to the University’s fundraising ‘For all our futures’ campaign.

The research unit will be managed by a team from the University of Auckland and as one of the first major projects in their Auckland Academic Health Alliance (AAHA) towards setting up the Integrated Cancer Centre.

“This is a significant and generous donation to establish a unit intended to improve outcomes for cancer patients in New Zealand, enabling greater access to new treatments through clinical trials,” says the Dean of the Faculty of Medical and Health Sciences, Professor John Fraser.

“The Centre will bring a unique and exciting opportunity to truly integrate translational and clinical research programmes to improve patient outcomes,” he says.

The Director of the Cancer and Blood Service, Auckland oncologist, Dr Richard Sullivan says, “The Cancer and Blood Service and the University want to open a research unit with the specialist infrastructure and governance framework to be able to safely deliver ‘First-in-Human’ studies.

“Such a unit will be designed and run to the highest possible standards expected of accredited Phase 1 units elsewhere globally,” he says.

“This also provides an excellent framework on which to launch new research in the pursuit of the delivery of personalised medicine,” says Dr Sullivan.

The three key platforms for the Integrated Cancer Centre are; a tumour tissue bank; a consolidated genomics research platform; and this purpose-built Cancer Phase 1 Clinical Trials Research Unit.

Cancer Phase 1 clinical studies include those that are for the first time giving a drug to a patient – so called First in Human studies.

They involve the administration of small, but cautiously escalating doses of a drug in carefully monitored patients. Once its dose has been established as optimal the drug gets further tested in phase 2 and 3 studies in larger numbers of patients.

Phase 1 studies require a higher level of expertise as well as more rigorous oversight and monitoring compared to later stage human trial research.

The Phase 1 trials are delivered by Clinical Research Coordinators and Research Nurses overseen by Principal Investigators with governance oversight provided by the Research Management team.

Patients in phase 1 and later phase studies will likely have their tumour and other samples collected and stored through the tissue bank facility and analysed using the genomics platform hence an integrated use of these resources.

For media enquiries email Suzi Phillips, Media Advisor Faculty of Medical and Health Sciences