Precision-Panc working with myTomorrows

World Pancreatic Cancer Day – 21 November 2019

Precision-Panc, University of Glasgow-led pancreatic cancer clinical trials programme, working with myTomorrows to help patients and doctors find personalised treatment options

The University of Glasgow-led and UK-wide Precision-Panc pancreatic cancer clinical trials programme will partner with myTomorrows, a global health technology company, to help patients with pancreatic cancer find new treatments. The announcement comes on World Pancreatic Cancer Day, 21 November, which is dedicated to raising awareness, supporting research and striving for better outcomes to this deadly cancer.

Under the agreement patients who contact Precision-Panc but are unsuitable for any of the currently available trials will be able to use myTomorrows services to seek other trials or Expanded Access Programmes.  If pancreatic patients or their doctors contact myTomorrows they will be informed about other available clinical trials, including Precision-Panc trials or Expanded Access Programmes (EAP).

Expanded Access Programmes, also known as Managed Access Programmes, operate in a medically and legally compliant way to support treatments that are currently not licensed for that indication in a patient’s country of residence. Such treatments can be an option for patients who are in high unmet medical need and have exhausted all registered treatment options and are not eligible to participate in a clinical trial.

Precision-Panc was established in 2017 at the University of Glasgow, with major funding by CRUK,  to bring precision medicine clinical trials to pancreatic cancer patients. Working with the researchers at the CRUK Beatson Institute, CRUK Cambridge Institute, CRUK Manchester Institute, the Institute of Cancer Research, London, the University of Oxford and the NHS, Precision-Panc, has established a network of more than 25 hospitals across the UK that offer these trials.

“In precision medicine, the DNA of each patient’s cancer is analysed with the aim of matching the right treatment to the right patient. Precision medicine aims to enable doctors to better personalise a patient’s treatment, saving time by providing medicines that are more likely to work – and avoiding the toxicity of those that won’t,” explained Professor Andrew Biankin, the Chair and principal investigator of Precision-Panc. 

“At the end of the day, we want our patients to access treatments that are most likely to work for them,” said Professor Biankin. “Our collaboration with myTomorrows will help us reach more pancreatic cancer patients and match them with treatments, either through current clinical trials, or through Expanded Access Programmes.”

myTomorrows is an innovative health technology company that uses artificial intelligence to search for emerging therapies worldwide for cancer, blood disorders and rare diseases.  When a patient or clinician makes contact with myTomorrows, they can speak directly with a patient navigator who is part of myTomorrows’ medical team.  The patient navigator then provides a personalised report listing possible treatment options — through clinical trials or Expanded Access Programmes.  This service is free of charge for patients and their doctors.

“It is a great honour to announce this collaboration on World Pancreatic Cancer Day,” said Steve Glass, COO of myTomorrows. “We look forward to this opportunity to help more pancreatic cancer patients and their families learn about possible treatment options. myTomorrows and Precision-Panc share a commitment to using technology to enable scientific discovery and to help patients access emerging therapies.”

myTomorrows is also working closely with Precision-Panc’s affiliates and patient advocacy organisations to help patients learn about, and access, medicines in development. Precision-Panc affiliates also include the International Cancer Genome Consortium (ICGC), which leads worldwide efforts to map the genomes of both common and rare cancers in order to accelerate the discovery of new treatments.

In addition to 21 November being World Pancreatic Cancer Day, November is also Pancreatic Cancer Awareness Month. Pancreatic cancer is a very complex cancer with few effective treatments.  The five-year survival rate for pancreatic cancer patients is only 9 percent. With 10,000 patients diagnosed annually in the UK (330,000 worldwide) and 9,300 deaths a year, pancreatic cancer is predicted to be the second most lethal cancer after lung cancer by 2025.

This collaboration between myTomorrows and Precision-Panc is currently focused on helping patients in the UK but also aims to expand to other European countries.

For enquiries about myTomorrows or Expanded Access Programmes, please visit www.mytomorrows.com or contact the myTomorrows medical team via medical@mytomorrows.com. 

For more information please contact Judith Dixon-Hughes 0141 330 2718, Anna Morris 0141 330 7282 or Blanche Hampton 0748 517 3506.

About Precision-Panc For more information about Precision-Panc, visit www.precisionpanc.org

About myTomorrows

myTomorrows operates as a two-sided platform. It serves the interests of both patients and Healthcare Professionals, as well as drug development. On one side, the company provides information on all treatment options to patients and physicians when registered treatments have been exhausted. On the other side, myTomorrows is specialised in Expanded Access Programme regulations and administration and real-world data collection, participating in the evolution of scientific clinical development. myTomorrows has gained experience in running over 25 EAPs over the past 5 years, in more than 40 countries worldwide.

About the International Cancer Genome Consortium’s ARGO (Acceleration Research in Genomic Oncology) (ICGC-ARGO) initiative

ICGC-ARGO is an international network of cancer clinicians, researchers and clinical trials groups working to address the key questions of:

1. How do we use current treatments better?

2. How does a cancer change with time and treatment?

3. How do we practically implement these approaches in healthcare and therapeutic development?

4. How do we advance early detection and ultimately prevent cancer?