To address unmet
needs of patients
Do you know that Japan is currently facing a drug lag or drug loss situation, where new cancer drugs are either “not available in Japan,” “take a long time to be approved,” or “can only be used for a limited number of patients,” despite being available elsewhere?
In particular, rare cancers (cancers that occur in fewer than six cases per 100,000 people),refractory cancers (cancers that are particularly difficult to diagnose and treat), and pediatric cancers have a high level of patient need and social significance for treatment development.
However, compared to other diseases, the number of patients eligible for treatment is small, and the market size is limited, resulting in a lack of proactive development of treatments by pharmaceutical companies.
At the National Cancer Center Hospital, we have launched The FUTURE Project with a strong commitment to shed light on these challenging areas of treatment development.
Our goal is to deliver new medicines to more patients quicker and to create a future of healthcare where no one is left behind.
In the past, there have been cases where patients desperately sought new treatments, but development stalled due to the small market size.
There were also cases where research funding was delayed because the innovation was too novel to fit the criteria of existing public funding programs.
Despite patients urging for the continuation of research, there were situations where funding was cut, forcing the research to be discontinued.
The FUTURE Project aims to prevent these issues from recurring by building a stable research foundation.
We are committed to conducting research that genuinely benefits patients and contributes to the advancement of society. Your generous support will help shape a brighter FUTURE for many patients.
All of us researchers are dedicated to ensure that better cancer treatments reach patients and their families as quickly as possible.
We sincerely ask for your support and understanding of The FUTURE Project’s mission, and we would deeply appreciate your generous contributions.
April 2024
Yasuyuki Seto
Director of National Cancer Center Hospital
Noboru Yamamoto
Principal Investigator of MASTER KEY Projcect
Introduction of research supported by The FUTURE Project
MASTER KEY Project
This is an industry-academia collaborative project aimed at advancing research and development for rare cancers and genomic medicine. Although the number of patients for each individual rare cancer is small, the total number of rare cancer patients combined is significant, accounting for about 20% of all cancer patients in Japan. Despite the high proportion, there are limited facilities capable of providing accurate diagnosis and treatment, making it difficult to conduct clinical trials.
The Master Key Project aims to accumulate a large-scale database of rare cancer patients, for whom information has not been systematically collected until now. Additionally, by conducting investigator-initiated clinical trials and industry-sponsored trials for rare cancers, the project seeks to enable efficient drug development for rare cancers. A database of clinical and genomic information for thousands of rare cancer patients has already been established, and dozens of clinical trials have been conducted. This has not only provided more treatment options for rare cancer patients but has also continuously led to the development of new therapies.
BELIEVE Trial
(The prospective trial of patient-proposed healthcare services with multiple targeted agent based on the result of gene profiling by multigene panel tests)
This gene panel testing, which can simultaneously check for the presence of hundreds of gene abnormality of tumor cells, has recently become available for cancer patients under national health insurance in Japan. As a result, even if a genetic abnormality is found through testing and genetically matched treatment is identified, some drugs are not approved in Japan and cannot be used under insurance coverage (hereinafter referred to as “off-label drugs”). Even if a clinical trial for that drug is being performed, some patients are unable to participate due to geograficaly reasons, physical conditions, and so on. “Patient-proposed healthcare services” (PPHS) allows patients to use off-label drugs under national health insurance, based on the patient’s proposal. BELIEVE trial is a clinical trial under PPHS aiming to provide more treatment options for cancer patients with the results of gene panel tests. It targets patients with solid tumors, without any age restrictions. So far, several hundred patients have undergone treatments using off-label drugs through this trial.
ATLAS Project
The ATLAS Project -the Asia Clinical Trials Network for Cancers Project- is a research and educational initiative dedicated to facilitating cancer drug development through pan-Asian clinical trials. When the patient population in Japan alone is insufficient to promptly complete trials, collaborating with other countries in Asia, such as Korea, Taiwan, the Philippines, Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia, and Singapore enables faster and more efficient drug approval across the region.
Multi-institutional clinical trials by JCOG (Japan Clinical Oncology Group)
JCOG (Japan Clinical Oncology Group) conducts investigator- initiated clinical trials nationwide, with approximately 190 medical institutions across Japan participating in these All Japan trials. JCOG continuously conducts around 100 clinical trials, and to date, over 400 papers have been published in various journals. Additionally, the results of over 100 clinical trials have been included in various cancer treatment guidelines, contributing to the establishment of better standard treatments. In recent years, JCOG has actively held discussions with patient groups and is making efforts to design clinical trials based on patients’ needs.
