New Institute set up in USA 'paves way for rapid cancer drug development'

The USA’s Greenville Hospital System University Medical Center (GHS) has unveiled details of its new Institute for Translational Oncology Research, a cancer initiative that, it claims, will help pave the way for new breakthroughs in rapid drug development, diagnostic discovery and advanced cancer care. ITOR is part of the GHS Cancer Center, a recognized regional multi-disciplinary center.

ITOR partners will include leading pharmaceutical companies, research universities, private industry and the government. Pharmaceutical and industry partners include long-time collaborator US Oncology, Caris Life Sciences and Lab21, as well as Amgen, AstraZeneca, Eisai Pharmaceuticals, Oncolix and Novartis, which recently selected ITOR as one of its newest designated Phase I clinical trial sites. Early academic partners also include the Cancer Research Center of the University of South Carolina.

The new institute, known as ITOR, builds on the success of GHS' Clinical Research Unit and its rapidly-developing biorepository tissue-banking service, which helped make GHS one of the country's prominent players in the development of promising new oncology drugs. Numerous first-in-human studies have been conducted through the CRU, which began in 2004 as part of GHS' long-standing relationship with Cancer Centers of the Carolinas.