Will Cancer Research UK make a difference?

LONDON — Nobody could accuse Cancer Research UK of not setting its sights high. The new body, launched this week, results from a merger between the Cancer Research Campaign and the Imperial Cancer Research Fund. According to the press release trumpeting the initiative, it's set to make Britain "the world's new hope" for finding cures for cancer.Certainly, the new organisation seems to have considerable financial clout and its programme of development makes impressive reading as it aims to be the largest independent cancer research organisation in the world. It claims to have £75 million for new investment that will provide state-of-the-art research facilities, improve scientists' knowledge of how to prevent the disease and speed up the development of new anti-cancer drugs.The plans include a £40 million research institute — employing 300 researchers — that will be built as part of a joint project with the University of Cambridge. There will also be a £15 million population research institute — run jointly with Oxford University and the British Heart Foundation — to study the prevention of cancer and other deadly diseases. And a separate team will focus on the development of new cancer treatments at the Northern Institute for Cancer Research — an £11 million project based in Newcastle-upon-Tyne and partly funded by the government, Newcastle University and the Foundation for Children with Leukaemia.Other plans include an expansion of the Beatson Cancer Research Institute in Glasgow and a new deal with the US National Cancer Institute to share information on disease research. To back this up, Cancer Research UK has set itself six key targets, which include curing patients faster, finding better treatments, training more cancer doctors, nurses and scientists and maximising the resources available for research.But behind the public relations spin, questions will inevitably be asked about whether the primary goal is really to bolster cancer research, or simply to slash costs and duplication of effort by bringing the two organisations together? Joint director general of Cancer Research UK Professor Gordon McVie admitted some jobs will be lost and costs will be cut through the new initiative. But he insisted the key objective is unquestionably to boost the chances of science winning the war against cancer. "There will be fewer than 100 jobs lost at the moment. But not only will we be able to cut costs through streamlining research, our bank charges will drop by about 65% overnight. This means we can buy a lot more for a lot less money. We estimate that £2.5 million to £3 million will be saved in administration costs alone."One of the key advantages, McVie said, will be the way research projects are approved from now on. The ICRF only ever funded projects submitted by its own scientists in its own laboratories, while the CRC ran a lottery-type system where the money was put forward to anybody providing the scientific rationale was sound. For the time being, there are no plans to change this, McVie said, but the process of approval will be dramatically speeded up. "The funding process will be the same as before but streamlined — a bit like a one-stop shop. Decisions will be given much more quickly and there will be a fast-track process. Cancer Research UK will still have scientists on the payroll and grants will still be allocated to universities. The peer review system will be identical for both, so there'll be no advantage gained from having your salary paid by CRUK."McVie believes cancer patients will really start to see benefits when the new organisation uses its fast-track process to bring new treatments into regular use. "I would have thought we could knock a year off that process. I would want to get drugs into clinical use within three years — that's from the chemist first discovering a new molecule to it being used in patients. At the moment, it takes several years and in the case of Temodal (a brain cancer drug) it took nearly 10 years."The merger, McVie added, will relieve some of the frustration researchers have felt down the years at having to cope with separate funding mechanisms and approval processes. And although the CRC and ICRF have managed to work closely on certain projects in recent years — such as an experimental cervical cancer vaccine — co-operation has not always been the watchword. "Sometimes, it's been taking 18 months to get a large trial funded or even get a decision on it," McVie admitted. "And there has been the occasional frustration between scientists in terms of non-willingness to share information in the lab. But that's going to get sorted out now."Cancer researchers seem to share the view that merging the two rival charities can only be beneficial. "I'm quite sure it will be an advance," said Professor Dulcie Coleman, emeritus professor of investigative science at the Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine. "There was a lot of duplication of effort and administration. But this should streamline the whole process and improve collaboration between scientists."And Professor Edward Newlands, a medical oncologist who was instrumental in the development of Temodal, said on balance it would be a good thing for cancer research. "Merging the two makes a lot of sense and I've no doubt it will benefit lots of different types of research. The two organisations so far have had rather different philosophies and the CRC certainly needed to review its administration, which had become top heavy."But he questioned whether the move will really have much impact on the availability of new drugs for cancer patients when they still have to go through the National Institute for Clinical Excellence (NICE) — the body responsible for vetting new drugs and treatments in England and Wales. "It's taking NICE two years to get round to new drugs that are coming through and at the moment it's acting as a brake on development in cancer."

Will Cancer Research UK make a difference?

The launch this week of Cancer Research UK has been dubbed the biggest shake-up in cancer research for 50 years.

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