41 / 49
There was indeed an urgent need to access
new drugs developed by pharmaceutical
companies as early as possible during their
development in adults, and to avoid families
moving to the US to get access to innovative
therapies in development.
Thanks to the EU Paediatric Medicine
Regulation, pharmaceutical companies and
academia have started to work together, to
evaluate oncology drugs within paediatric
investigation plans. This is a learning
curve for everyone since pharmaceutical
companies are not accustomed to working
with paediatric oncologists and vice versa.
The goal is to develop ‘
intelligent and
transparent’ partnerships
that recognise
the specificities of paediatric haematology-
oncology, i.e. a well-structured arena for
clinical research, dealing with rare and
complex situations, while the paediatric
development of oncology drugs is, by
definition, a pre-competitive research
activity for pharmaceutical companies and
competition to access rare patients makes
no sense.
A new model of cooperation between
pharmaceutical companies, academia and
public-private partnership needs to be
developed in order to adequately address
the needs of children and adolescents with
cancer and regulatory requirements. This
is being addressed in the CDDF-SIOPE-ITCC
paediatric oncology platform. In addition, a
strategy will be implemented to encourage
investment and partnership with small
pharmaceutical companies to develop drugs
against specific paediatric targets.
Partnership with charities
In several EU Member States, charities
are extremely efficient at fundraising to
support research and care for children and
adolescents with cancer. These efforts are
developed at the national level and can be
fragmented, with significant differences
between countries.
Most research programmes are run at the
European level, and there is a need to figure
out how charities from different countries
can be more efficient at jointly funding large
and ambitious European programmes.
SIOPE will propose to charities to fund
and co-fund European projects and
programmes. By defining, implementing
and coordinating a long term sustainable
Strategic Plan, SIOPE and the European
paediatric haematology-oncology are willing
to provide a transparent and clear visibility
to the projects that will be run within a well-
defined and integrated framework.
41
A EUROPEAN CANCER PLAN FOR CHILDREN AND ADOLESCENTS
Credit Czech Working Group for Paediatric Oncology, Czech Republic