Cambridge is one of six major European cancer centres that have established a consortium – Cancer Core Europe – announced today ( 26th September) at the ESMO (European Society of Molecular Oncology) conference in Madrid. The consortium partners are: Gustave Roussy Cancer Campus Grand Paris, Cambridge Cancer Centre ( www.cambridgecancercentre.org.uk ), Karolinska Institutet – KI, Netherlands Cancer Institute – NKI, Vall d’Hebron Institute of Oncology – VHIO, and the German Cancer Research Center – DKFZ and its National Center for Tumor Diseases – NCT.

Professor Carlos Caldas, CRUK Cambridge Institute and Department of Oncology, has played a leading role in forming the collaboration which aims to increase and drive translational and clinical cancer research. This is a new and unique partnership that has significant potential to improve patient outcomes by sharing molecular diagnostic data, developing innovative clinical trials, and integrating patient data using electronic records from the 60,000 new cancer patients diagnosed annually across the six centres. By working together the consortium partners will be able to establish compatible infrastructures for conducting joint clinical trials, to apply for joint funding through European mechanisms and to be a significant partner for the pharma and biotech industry. A paper announcing the consortium is published on 26th September in the European Journal of Cancer :http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ejca.2014.07.025

http://www.cambridgecancercentre.org.uk/news/combining-cancer-expertise-across-europe