AZ links with Cancer Research UK to trial cancer drugs
Experimental drugs from AZ will be combined and tested alongside conventional chemotherapy
AstraZeneca is to work with Cancer Research UK’s Drug Development Office (DDO) under a strategic alliance to test combinations of its experimental cancer drugs in early phase clinical trials.
Certain experimental drugs developed and owned by AstraZeneca will be combined and tested alongside conventional chemotherapy radiotherapy and other novel agents.
It is hoped that combination therapy using a number of molecularly targeted drugs may reduce the risk of patients developing resistance to a particular individual drug.
AZ will provide access to its drugs to be trialled through the alliance as well as additional financial support.
Kate Miller, head of the combinations alliance at Cancer Research UK’s DDO, said the initiative ‘will provide a huge boost to the UK research community in developing exciting new combination therapies’.
She added that Cancer Research UK was looking for more partners interested in collaborations.
‘Our plan is to take the model we’ve established with AstraZeneca forward by developing cross company agreements and providing access to a larger number of potential combinations to help us beat cancer,’ she said.
