Largest-Ever Precision Medicine Oncology Trial Ready for Launch

A landmark clinical trial that will channel patients into treatment arms based on molecular abnormalities rather than cancer type aims to simultaneously test the efficacy of more than 20 drugs.

A landmark clinical trial that will channel patients into treatment arms based on molecular abnormalities rather than cancer type aims to simultaneously test the efficacy of more than 20 drugs, in an ambitious National Cancer Institute (NCI) plan to further propel oncology drug discovery into the precision medicine era.

Starting in July, the NCI-MATCH trial will seek to recruit 1000 adults 18 years or older with progressive advanced solid tumors and lymphomas that are either refractory to standard therapy or for which there is no standard therapy. Participants will be assigned to small phase 2 trials based on molecular tumor profiling of specimens from biopsies conducted at the time of study entry.

The trial is “a critical and leading part” of the nation’s precision medicine initiative, Clifford A. Hudis, MD, FACP, said during a press briefing at the 2015 annual meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) in Chicago, where NCI-MATCH and other innovative research projects were detailed.

“In oncology, we’ve embraced this idea for years,” said Hudis, a past president of ASCO and a breast cancer specialist at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. “The initiatives that we’re discussing today reflect not a new initiative, but an expansion of an ongoing dream that we have been pursuing.”

“This is the largest and most rigorous precision oncology trial that’s ever been attempted,” said James H. Doroshow, MD, the NCI’s deputy director.