‘A day of hope’: Irish hospital patients get access to ‘early phase’ cancer drugs

“Today is a day of hope,” said Mater hospital chairman David Begg as it launched an initiative which could mean cancer patients securing access to cutting-edge drug treatments in the State years in advance of when this would otherwise have been the case.
Miriam Staunton from Templeogue in Dublin was diagnosed with stage three melanoma in 2018 and progressed to the more advanced stage four a year later.
She says that clinical trials which can provide access to the most modern treatments are very important to her.
“While I did not have the benefit of a clinical trial, I have received new treatments that have come through in the last six to seven years. I am currently stable [but] I have had the last line of treatment. So I am looking for what is coming next.”
Jed Van De Poll from Howth was diagnosed with multiple myeloma in March 2022.
He is the beneficiary of a clinical trial into a new form of treatment.
“I am patient 001 on what is known as the RVD ISA trial.”
He says this is looking at a monoclonal antibody which, he describes as one of these “really advanced techniques which uses my own immune system to attack the [cancer] cells”.
The new Start Dublin unit at the Mater will offer patients with advanced cancer the opportunity to participate in advanced research using the latest drugs.
Start Dublin is a collaboration between the Mater, UCD and the Start Center for Cancer Research in San Antonio in the US.
Consultant oncologist Austin Duffy, the director of research and principal investigator in Start Dublin, says about 30,000 people are diagnosed with cancer annually in Ireland.
“Now that we have an early phase oncology clinical trials unit here in Dublin, we hope to offer patients access to new and promising drugs years before they might otherwise become available.”
A clinical trial is where a patient is given a drug that is not fully approved, says Dr Duffy.
“It hasn’t been through the full stages of development.”
“In order for a drug to get to that place and then get the regulatory approval so that it can be prescribed by oncologists as a standard of care, it has to go through this journey. And this is the very starting point of the journey where you are giving that drug to patients for the first time.”
“Obviously there is an uncertainty there. But the exciting piece about that is that that’s genuinely cutting edge. I mean, that is the most recent, most up-to-date, most current. It’s the best that science has to offer at this current moment in time. Whereas, if you’re doing a later phase, a phase three study, that drug has already been around, let’s say, 10 years.”
“So it’s much more cutting edge [and] the real advantage from a patient point of view, is that it is new. So you’re getting the best, or what we think is the best. The second piece is that those trials tend to be a little bit less restrictive in terms of their eligibility. So they are a bit more open to patients who’ve had multiple lines of previous treatment. They are a bit more open to patients with rarer cancers. And also, the other main advantage is that there’s no placebo involved.”
He says it will not cost patients a penny to participate, nor will they have to have health insurance.
The first trial at the new unit will look at a drug for ovarian cancer which is approved in the US but not yet available in Ireland or elsewhere in Europe. “And with our first study, which is looking at one particular aspect of that drug, every woman with ovarian cancer in that study is going to get access”, says Dr Duffy.