The Little Princess Trust (LPT) forges important partnerships with other charities, such as CCLG, to further children’s cancer research. Its Chief Executive Phil Brace tells us how the LPT has come together with Cancer Research UK to help more young people access clinical trials.
The LPT is known throughout the country for providing real hair wigs, free of charge, to children and young people who have lost their hair due to cancer treatment. However, fewer people are aware that we are also one of the largest charity funders of childhood cancer research in the UK.
We’ve always believed that every child deserves the best chance of survival, regardless of their cancer type, and that’s one of the reasons why we decided to begin funding childhood cancer research in 2016. Through our successful partnership with CCLG, who works closely with us to share its expertise, we’ve looked to fill gaps in research funding and supported a wide range of projects from discovery science to clinical trials.
However, we’re fully aware that while great progress has been made, there is so much more to do. Since 2016, we’ve always tried to forge partnerships with other cancer research funders – and that’s what we’ve done again this year with Cancer Research UK to effectively treble the amount of funding going to the Paediatric Experimental Medicine Centres (PECMC), a network of centres across the UK. (PECMC) that are spread across the UK.
We believe that the £6.6million going to PECMCs across the next five years will deliver an increase in clinical trials into promising new treatments for cancers affecting children and young people. The vital funding from the partnership – which also includes the National Institute for Health and Care Research, the Chief Scientific Office in Scotland and Health and Care Research Wales – will give young people, up to the age of 24, access to trials testing promising new medicines that aren’t available anywhere else. And, in doing so, they help doctors and researchers find more effective and less toxic drugs that don’t have lasting consequences for young patients later in life. We want this funding to reduce the side effects and allow these inspirational young people to be able to lead normal lives as they grow older.
We’ve always believed that every child deserves the best chance of survival, regardless of their cancer type, and that’s one of the reasons why we decided to begin funding childhood cancer research in 2016.
Ultimately, the ECMC network trials bring the medicines of the future closer to the children and young people of today. The involvement of the LPT in this partnership is a landmark moment in our charity’s history, while it also reaffirms our commitment to funding childhood cancer research.
How will this help children and young people with cancer?
With the increase in funding, which is almost three times the amount from the last five-year period, the PECMC network will expand to include a new centre in Cardiff. Trial designs will get more patient-friendly, too – with the network supporting tests and scans at local hospitals as well as the 12 PECMCs
The new funding will also pay for the development of a data platform that brings together all the information we can gather about people’s individual cancers. Plus, over the next five years, the PECMC network will be focusing on using its data to improve how we use established drugs.
And, of course, the money will also ensure the network can train and employ more of the specialist nurses, researchers and data managers it needs to carry out innovative clinical trials built around the needs of patients.
From Contact magazine issue 100 - Autumn 2023
