The Spain-headquartered contract research organisation (CRO) Pivotal has teamed with APRO (Associació Per la Recerca Oncológica) to assess investigational cancer treatments in combination with chemotherapy in three investigator-sponsored trials (ISTs).
The medium-sized CRO and APRO – a non-profit association that aims to advance cancer research – will study two novel drugs in two separate bladder cancer trials and one prostate cancer study.
According to Pivotal, “Both drugs, a checkpoint inhibitor and a targeted therapy blocking mTOR pathway, will be combined with chemotherapy, aiming to confirm the hypothesis of a synergistic mechanism of action and, specifically for the immunotherapy drug, an induced treatment-related auto-vaccination.”
The partnership is a boon for ‘ethical’ independent research studies, said APRO principal investigator Joaquim Bellmunt in a statement: “Investigator sponsored trials expand product knowledge and search for new ways to use existing treatments, thus improving the health of many patients.”
“We truly believe in the need for ethical independent clinical research conducted by qualified cooperative groups and investigators in order to complement Pharma-sponsored research and ensure a better understanding of the benefit/risk profile of current therapies, as well as to explore new opportunities to address unmet medical needs,” he added.