ANALYSIS: EXCLUSIVE
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INTERNATIONAL INNOVATION
ANALYSIS: EXCLUSIVE
Executive Director of Strategy and Research Funding, Cancer Research UK
International Innovation speaks with Dr Iain Foulkes about the forthcoming opening of the Francis Crick Institute, the importance of the organisation's operating strategy and the diverse ways that Cancer Research UK is funding research that will have true translational impact Cancer Research UK is working to beat cancer in a number of different ways, from fundraising to policy development. Can you outline the organisation’s core activities? Cancer Research UK is the largest independent funder of cancer research in the world; we spend around £350 million on research each year. This supports work along the research pathway, from basic through to last-phase clinical, and along the patient pathway, from prevention through to treatment. Outside scientific research, we have an ambitious policy agenda, which works to ensure the findings of cancer research translate to public and patient benefits through legislation and within the healthcare system. That includes campaigning on issues such as standardised packaging for tobacco and access to radiotherapy. We also act as leader in cancer information for patients and the public, and drive this through an online presence, outreach activities and awareness campaigns. Clearly all this work cannot happen without the continued generosity of our supporters – effective fundraising is vital. This involves developing new and innovative ways to fundraise (we have an innovation team to support this) and maintaining growth in key areas. It has been a tough few years for the whole sector, but we last year was strong; we raised around £480 million through a combination of legacies, direct giving, trading (our charity shops), our Race for Life event (a sponsored 5 km run for women), volunteer fundraising and more. Major donation also represents a key area of focus for us, including the Create the Change campaign for the Francis Crick Institute.
Could you introduce yourself and your role within Cancer Research UK? What does your position entail? As Executive Director of Strategy and Research Funding, my role within Cancer Research UK has two broad components. One is leading our research funding activity, which involves overseeing our research portfolio to ensure it aligns to the organisation’s strategy and objectives. The other is leading the development of strategies for the organisation as a whole. This includes research but also fundraising, policy and corporate strategies. You are a member of both the Science Committee and the Scientific Executive Board. What function do these bodies serve? The Science Committee is the body responsible for making funding decisions about our response-mode discovery research (ie. basic and translational). It is chaired independently by Professor Chris Marshall of the Institute of Cancer Research and ultimately exists to ensure we fund basic and translational research that is of the highest quality and cancerrelevance. The Science Committee does not cover the whole spectrum of our research – it has counterparts. The New Agents Committee, for example, looks after early-phase trial activity, while the Clinical Trials and Awards Advisory Committee oversees later phase clinical trial activity and the Population Research Committee looks after population research. The Scientific Executive Board is concerned with the strategic and operational oversight of our entire research funding; it is a sub-set of
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ANALYSIS: EXCLUSIVE the charity’s Executive Board, and it is made up of Cancer Research UK representatives. It covers the full spectrum of our research activity. It makes decisions on the strategic direction of our research and oversees the overall management and allocation of our research budget. Cancer Research UK is coming to the end of its 2009-14 research strategy. To what extent has the organisation made progress towards achieving the priorities it set out five years ago? Our 2009-14 strategy had three clear themes: focusing our research, providing the right environment for research and providing the right people for research. We have progressed well on each of these. We have continued to fund research of the highest scientific quality through our response-mode and core funding. We have also taken a leadership role in personalised medicine through the Stratified Medicine Programme, which demonstrated how genetic testing on tumours could be carried out routinely in the National Health Service (NHS). In terms of environment, we developed the Centres network to drive translational research across the country. This is about to enter its next phase. We have continued to fund world-class research in our institutes and taken the exciting opportunity to partner with the Francis Crick institute. We are also continuing to support and train the next generation of cancer researchers through our fellowships and within our institutes and Centres.
The Francis Crick Institute Due to open in 2015, the Francis Crick Institute will be unique in fostering close collaboration between biomedical researchers on a range of disease types. The facility itself will be state-of-theart, and the researchers working within it will be some of the best in the world.
The only area of the 2009-14 strategy where we have not progressed as far as we would have liked is researching into cancers of unmet medical need. We will be addressing this through our new strategy.
Furthermore, since we know that early diagnosis of cancer offers the greatest potential for major improvements in outcomes, we intend to make substantial investments to achieve more in this area. This will include basic biological research, diagnostic development, epidemiology, health services research, behavioural research and policy activities. Most notably, we will initiate new research into biomarkers for early detection, utilising a multidisciplinary approach that includes biologists, clinicians, technology experts, physicists, engineers, molecular pathologists and biostatisticians.
Do you envisage any new areas of focus in the next strategy, which will be released in spring this year?
Could you summarise the process through which Cancer Research UK formulates its long-term research and funding strategies?
While the new strategy represents a continuation of our commitment to funding world-leading work across the research and patient pathways, there will be some areas of increased concentration. We will also focus more on cancers of unmet medical need – lung, pancreatic, oesophageal and brain. Historically, these cancers have been under-invested in and have high mortality rates. Pancreatic cancer, for instance, has a fiveyear survival rate of just 4 per cent, while lung cancer continues to be the biggest cancer killer in the UK. We focused on lung, pancreatic and oesophageal cancers in our 2009-2014 strategy, but we now recognise
The process for formulating our most recent research strategy involved consulting with scientific and clinical communities to harness their expertise. We talked to 100 researchers, asking broad questions in key areas including: what works well?; what does not work as well?; what are the biggest opportunities?; what challenges might lie ahead?; and what should Cancer Research UK’s role be? That last point is very important. Through the process of developing the strategy, we had to think long and hard about our role as a funder.
2002
2003
2004
• Cancer Research UK forms following the merger of the Cancer Research Campaign and the Imperial Cancer Research Fund. Its formation marks the creation of the largest independent cancer research organisation in the world
• It is discovered that HPV testing could help cervical screening
• The largest ever trial for pancreatic cancer begins
• The faulty BRAF gene is found in more than half of melanoma cases 8
we did not catalyse and facilitate enough high-quality research in these areas. We underestimated the challenge, thinking a statement of intent would be enough to bring in exceptional grant applications. This time we will take a more proactive approach, building capacity and fostering effective collaborations within the research community.
INTERNATIONAL INNOVATION
2006
• The 3D structure of cancer protein Hsp90 is unravelled, paving the way for novel diagnostic and treatments. • Experimental Cancer Medicine Centres – designed to streamline new cancer treatments into clinical trials in patients – open across the UK
2007
• Cambridge Research Institute opens, with the aim of helping lab researchers work more closely with cancer doctors. Their goal is to deliver new discoveries to patients as quickly as possible • Smoke-free legislation is brought in across the UK following a Cancer Research UK campaign
ANALYSIS: EXCLUSIVE Supporters give generously to Cancer Research UK in support of its mission to save more lives by preventing, controlling and curing cancer. We need to ensure we continue to fund world-class research, while recognising that our responsibility is to our donors to ensure that those research findings are translated into benefits for patients and the public at the appropriate time and as rapidly as possible.
Look how far we have come…
Are there any particular benefits to working for a large-scale, world-leading organisation like Cancer Research UK that you would like to highlight? Working at Cancer Research UK offers the benefit of knowing you are part of a team that is making a real impact. We have sufficient scale to undertake the activities we feel will bring us nearer to achieving our objectives, but we are not so big that we can do everything. This enables us to invest with a view of making impact and progression. Working for Cancer Research UK is also great because I am part of an organisation with a unique role. The UK research environment is an incredibly strong platform for making progress against cancer. We have excellent researchers in a network of internationally renowned universities and a single health system. The organisation has a huge role to play in harnessing these assets within the UK and bringing its influence to bear internationally. You have served as Executive Director of Strategy and Research Funding since August 2009. Would you like to outline any particular achievements or innovations that have occurred during this time? While I have been the Executive Director of Strategy and Research Funding for several years, I have been with Cancer Research UK since it formed in 2002. I was actually at Imperial Cancer Research Fund – one of the two organisations that merged to form Cancer Research UK – before that point in time. Since then, the organisation has grown and evolved enormously. In terms of achievements, there are almost too many to mention! I am proud of the advances that scientists have made as a result of our funding, which is only made possibly thanks to our donors. Cancer Research UK has also made a massive impact in UK health – the ban on smoking in public places will save many lives, the ban on children using sunbeds likewise, and many of the continued improvements in cancer services are thnaks to the great work of our organisation.
2008
• Trial results reveal that using larger, but fewer, doses of radiotherapy is as effective as the standard radiotherapy treatment used for treating early breast cancer
2009
2010
• Five gene variations that can increase the risk of the brain tumour glioma are identified
• A new flexi-scope test is found to significantly improve bowel cancer screening
• Researchers show that IMRT – a new technique to provide radiotherapy for head and neck cancer – can reduce the side effects of treatment and dramatically improve patients’ quality of life
• An international trial confirms that the drug anastrozole can prevent breast cancer from returning even a decade later
In the 1960s, only 30% of children survived childhood cancer. This has now risen to 82%
In the early 1970s, just 25% of people survived a cancer diagnosis by 10 years or more. This has now doubled to 50% Cancer death rates have dropped by 20% in the last 20 years
www.cancerresearchuk.org
2011
• New legislation comes into force in England and Wales preventing under18s from using sunbeds, following a campaign led by Cancer Research UK and other supporters • International Cancer Genome Consortium launches with the aim of reading the entire DNA sequence of individual cancers, which have been taken from thousands of individuals
2013
• HPV is linked to a third of throat cancers • Scientists break the blood-brain barrier to more effectively treat cancers in the brain
2014
• #nomakeupselfie online trend goes viral on social media, raising over £8 million in six days •N ovel anti-cancer drug RG7813, developed by Cancer Research UK, enters its first clinical trial • L aunch of a worldfirst clinical trial of targeted treatments for advanced bowel cancer
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