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Advancing Cancer Research Through Collaboration

Friends of Cancer Research (Friends) powers advances in science and policy that speed life-saving treatments to patients.

About Friends

PUBLICATIONS

New HRD Findings in JCO OA Examine Variability in Outputs From HRD Assays

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Friends HRD Harmonization Project

Press Release

New HRD Project Findings Published in JCO OA

Who We Are,
What We Drive

Friends of Cancer Research drives collaboration among partners from every healthcare sector to power advances in science, policy, and regulation that speed life-saving treatments to patients.

Circulating Tumor DNA (ctDNA)

ctDNA to Monitor Treatment Response (ctMoniTR) is a first of its kind partnership led by Friends of Cancer Research (Friends) to answer the question: Do changes in ctDNA reflect response to treatment?

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Real-World Evidence

The Friends of Cancer Research Real-World Evidence portfolio develops and establishes methodology for using Real-World Data to demonstrate benefit to patients.

Homologous Recombination Deficiency (HRD)

The Homologous Recombination Deficiency (HRD) Harmonization Project supports the future use of assays that measure the HRD biomarker for treatment decision making. Friends is currently examining sources of variability across HRD tests and identifying opportunities for alignment while proposing solutions to improve agreement in the future.

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Homologous Recombination Deficiency (HRD)

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Tumor Mutational Burden (TMB)

The Tumor Mutational Burden (TMB) Harmonization Project was completed in 2021 and supports the use of assays that measure TMB for treatment decision making by examining sources of variability across assays and identifying opportunities for alignment.

Supporting the Development of Diagnostic Tests

On Tuesday, February 22, 2022, Friends of Cancer Research hosted a live virtual event that brought together leading voices from various health sectors to discuss key considerations for developing diagnostics tests for rare populations of patients, including those with rare diseases and rare biomarkers.

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Data Driven Insights Dashboards

Friends has created a series of interactive dashboards as a tool to gain data driven insights into the landscape of oncology drug development and FDA drug approvals.

Breakthrough

Working with our partners in all sectors, Friends took ‘Breakthrough’ from concept, to scientific whitepaper, to bipartisan legislative solution, to a tool in full use by FDA to expedite the approval of multiple drugs in 13 months. On November 1, 2013, only a year after being signed into law and 29 designations had been announced, the first Breakthrough designation received full FDA approval.

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ProgressForPatients.org

ProgressforPatients.org brings together patients and their advocates as we work to incorporate the patient voice into research and drug development. We strive to then connect advocates with opportunities taking place at institutions and organizations across the regulatory landscape from government agencies, advocacy groups, industry partners, and more.

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Eligibility Criteria

Eligibility criteria are necessary in clinical trials to define the patient population, isolate the potential effect of an investigational drug, and ensure that the trial is conducted safely. However, overly strict eligibility criteria may impair the rate of trial accrual, restrict patient access to investigational drugs, and limit the ability to generalize the results to the broader population of patients who will ultimately use the drug.

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Clinical Trials

What is a clinical trial? How does it impact patients? Click here to learn more about this important piece in the drug development process.

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