APPENDICES TO THE MINUTES OF EVIDENCE
APPENDIX 1
Memorandum submitted by the University
of Oxford
I am writing in response to your request for
an update on views regarding cancer research in the UK. I am pleased
to say that there has been significant progress since the Science
and Technology Committee published its 2000 report. Taking the
points as ordered in your own letter:
— The NHS research base has been considerably
enhanced by the formation of two networks, the National Cancer
Research Network (NCRN) charged with providing infrastructure
necessary to increase the number of patients entering randomised
clinical trials and the National Translational Cancer Research
Network (NTRAC), which aims to get more science into the clinic
(eg increasing the number of novel diagnostic or therapeutic agents
entering clinical trial). NCRN, I believe, has made a good start
in organising and increasing awareness of its role and has been
met by the clinical community with much enthusiasm. I must declare
a vested interest in NTRAC as I have been appointed its director!
We have established the coordinating centre in Oxford, following
my recent appointment to the Rhodes Chair of Therapeutics and
Pharmacology, and are in the middle of selecting (a maximum of
10 from 19 applicants) those cancer institutions which will make
up NTRAC's care. These will be announced at the end of January
with funding commencing in April 2002 (all exactly on the timetable
agreed with DoH). This represents an extraordinary opportunity
to weld together a network of elite cancer research units, sharing
common aims equipment, trials and ideas in order to realise patient
benefit, and contribute to the competitiveness of the UK's science
base. The aim of the coordinating centre will be to promote as
much synergy and positive interaction between the NTRAC centres
as possible, based on the belief that the sum of the whole should
be greater than its individual parts. Funding for NTRAC centres
is of the order of £200k per annum (maximum of 10 centres
around the UK), which represents only a fraction of the grant
income attracted from the research charities, MRC etc, by these
institutions, however, it will provide essential infrastructural
support to ensure more rapid application and transit of laboratory
advances of the clinic.
In contradistinction to NCRN which
distributes a resource to every clinical cancer network in England,
NTRAC is selective and can fund a maximum of only 50 per cent
of the applications it has received. If the next quinquennium
is successful, we would hope to be able to persuade the DoH that
if there are other centres of sufficient quality, NTRACs funding
position would be adjusted to take account of this.
— The Cancer Research Funding Forum
has been renamed the National Cancer Research Institute (NCRI)
and has already overseen a concerted action on prostate cancer,
establishment of NCRN and NTRAC and is considering a national
scheme to establish tissue and DNA banks, linked to large scale
clinical trials, which would be made available to UK-based cancer
researchers. This is an obvious area for NTRAC and NCRN to tackle
together. Two important players in NCRI, the Cancer Research Campaign
and the Imperial Cancer Research Fund are in the midst of merger
talks, the results of which will have a huge set of implications
for the funding and governance of cancer research in the UK. Despite
these internal upheavals, NCRI has made a good start and has the
potential to establish strategic oversight of cancer research
in the UK using a balance of core and response mode funding. The
NHS contribution to the NCRI should not be under emphasised, as
theirs is, ultimately, the field on which all of clinical cancer
research is played, and tribute should be paid to the far-sightedness
of the DoH in formalising their role in this respect.
— We need to invest in cancer registration
in order to make these timely providers of scientifically and
clinical useful information, which should help plan service delivery.
The data protection act has thrown up some barriers to this and
there are issues, which need to be resolved so that registries
can meet their full potential. As things currently stand, with
one or two exceptions, they are neither betwixt nor between, and
are often seen to provide low-level information, which is often
out of date.
Professor David J Kerr
3 December 2001
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