CTRad and Combinations Alliance Radiotherapy-Immunotherapy Workshop, March 2016

In March this year, the NCRI Clinical and Translational Radiotherapy Working Group (CTRad) and the ECMC Combinations Alliance organised a joint Radiotherapy (RT)-Immunotherapy Workshop. This workshop, led by Dr Richard Adams and Professor Tim Illidge, aimed to highlight the drug development requirements of the RT and immunotherapy communities and select key proposals to take forward in discussions with companies for future development and funding.

The 47 attendees included scientists and clinicians from the radiotherapy and immunology fields, in addition to several statisticians, trial methodologists, a CTRad consumer representative and members of the ECMC Combinations Alliance team.  The morning session began with four talks from key opinion leaders in the radiotherapy and immunology fields.

Professor Tim Illidge outlined the scientific rationale and optimisation of combinations for immuno-oncology, and Professor Kevin Harrington show-cased the current portfolio of immuno-oncology trials. Professor Martin Glennie went on to discuss immuno-regulatory agents and Professor Christian Ottensmeier (Southampton ECMC) described the translational endpoints in immune-radiotherapy.

The afternoon session followed with two parallel breakout sessions to review and develop academically led proposals for clinical and preclinical studies. Thirteen proposals were submitted and the investigators invited to give a 10 minute presentation, followed by discussion. There was a good variety of preclinical and clinical studies proposed, at different stages of development.

Dr Hazel Jones then gave an overview of the ECMC Combinations Alliance framework and process to take proposals forward. Presenters will receive feedback from the meeting and be invited to resubmit, taking into account the guidance from the workshop. These proposals can then form the basis of discussion with the relevant companies.

The meeting was well received and delegates thought that it was an important opportunity to identify gaps in our knowledge. As a fast-moving and exciting field, the meeting may go forward as an annual event.

If you have ideas for RT-drug combination projects, or you would like to offer expertise and/or facilities, you can contact the Radiation-Drug Combinations Consortium (RaDCom) project manager Julie Stock (julie.stock@cancer.org.uk), or find out more on the CTRad website.