The Newsletter of ANZUP Cancer Trials Group Limited
SUMMER 2019
CHRISTMAS MESSAGE FROM THE CEO
MARGARET MCJANNETT CEO, ANZUP
As we draw a close to this decade and look ahead to the 20’s, it is a great time to reflect on ANZUP’s achievements over the past 12 months.
In terms of our trials there is little doubt 2019 has seen some significant milestones for ANZUP. In particular, in June we celebrated a major achievement with our ENZAMET trial featuring at the 2019 American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) Annual Meeting. It certainly propelled us onto the international stage! Special thanks to the Study Co-chairs, Ian Davis and Christopher Sweeney for their commitment and leadership and to our local and international investigators from across the 85 sites, our collaborators at the NHMRC CTC, Cancer Trials Ireland, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and the Canadian Cancer Trials Group, and to all the patients who participated on the trial. We were also featured in a Channel 9 news story on the importance of Translational Research in Clinical Trials. Men who participated in ANZUP’s ENZAMET and ENZARAD trials were asked to consent to the collection of blood and tissue samples for the purpose of translational research. Over 100,000 samples have been collected around the world, and are in the process of being transported to our central biobank at Chris O’Brien Lifehouse in Sydney. This will be one of the largest (if not the largest) collections of its type in Australia. But it’s not just all about the ENZA studies! ANZUP’s clinical trials portfolio continues to grow across the major cancers we represent. Currently we have 7 ANZUP-led active
and recruiting trials, 3 co-badged trials, 6 protocols in development, 25 concepts presented across 5 concept development workshops; and 6 Below the Belt Research Grants awarded in July. We are in discussions around ANZUP collaborating with international trials to answer important questions in these rare cancers. We were delighted to announce that three of our trials reached their recruitment targets in the last couple of months; TheraP, UNISoN and PainFree TrusB. In September the last patient was randomised to our TheraP trial, five months ahead of schedule. Study Chair Michael Hofman, led this important prostate cancer study and we look forward to sharing the results with you in the New Year. Shortly after the UNISoN trial reached its target of 85 patients, nine months ahead of the planned recruitment. We are grateful to Study Chair Craig Gedye, for his extraordinary efforts in leading this study, all the investigators and dedicated trial staff across Australia who did an amazing job on this important Non-Clear Cell Kidney Cancer trial. Finally, last month we congratulated Nick Buchan and the Pain Free TRUS B team for recruiting the final patient & reaching the target of 420 patients – yet another significant milestone!
THE ENZAMET TEAM AT ASCO
There are also a number of exciting new studies due to open in early 2020 – including DASLHiCaP, ENZA-p and UpFrontPSMA. You can read more about these trials throughout this edition of UpDate.