Failing the most vulnerable
Bringing new therapeutics to children and young people means facing the market’s failure to get new drugs to the clinic. Sam Daems talks us through why traditional drug discovery models have failed to improve paediatric cancer care and what we can do about it.
Beyond the scientific challenges of paediatric cancer, economic barriers are a key reason why fewer therapies reach children and young people. Sam emphasises the impact of small patient populations, which make clinical trial recruitment harder and delays the time-to-market for new treatments. Additionally, the unfavourable risk-return balance discourages pharmaceutical companies from investing in paediatric oncology.
To address these challenges, we are taking a fresh approach, providing resourcing and funding to deliver new therapeutics for children’s and young people’s cancer.