Roche to fund first-of-its-kind Australian cancer study in precision medicine

Roche Australia, in partnership with the Australian Government, today announced an agreement to jointly fund a new clinical program, called ‘ASPiRATION’, to assess the impact of personalised healthcare in lung cancer – potentially transforming the way cancer care is administered in this country.

The Australian Government will commit $5 million towards the study through the Medical Research Future Fund (MRFF) while Roche will contribute $6.74 million, and access to Roche medicines via clinical trials. All study activities will be overseen and implemented by the Australasian Lung Cancer Trials Group (ALTG), the Australian Genomic Cancer Medicine Centre (AGCMC), and the NHMRC Clinical Trials Centre (CTC).

Importantly, the ASPiRATION study will be the first-of-its-kind in Australia to generate high quality, real world, clinical and medical data about the impact and value of comprehensive genomic profiling (CGP), precision medicine and personalised healthcare (PHC).

ASPiRATION is a national, multi-centre prospective study of the clinical impact of personalised healthcare on the management and treatment of Australians with newly diagnosed, metastatic non-squamous non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC).

Roche told Health Industry Hub that the first patient is expected to be enrolled in the study in July 2020. The study will be listed on the Australian & New Zealand Clinical Trials Registry (ANZCTR) as part of the standard clinical trial set up process, once governance arrangements and ethics approval have been finalised.

The treatment for patients enrolled in the ASPiRATION study will be based on the results of the CGP and determined by their treating clinician, which could involve a range of options from targeted therapies to immunotherapies including Roche’s TECENTRIQ (atezolizumab) in combination with AVASTIN (bevacizumab) and a platinum-doublet chemotherapy PBS listed in October 2019.

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Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer death and the fifth most commonly diagnosed cancer in Australia. In patients with advanced or metastatic lung cancer, survival at five years from diagnosis is just 3 per cent.

“There is a clear need for better management of advanced lung cancer to improve survival outcomes for Australian patients,” said A/Professor Nick Pavlakis, President of the ALTG. “Clinical practice is shifting toward precision medicine becoming the standard in cancer care, where treatment can be personalised to the unique genomic profile of a patient’s tumour.”

“In patients with advanced lung cancer, the identification of an actionable tumour marker unlocks potential high impact treatment options – which may have otherwise not been considered – greatly improving patients’ prognosis and long-term outcomes,” said Professor Pavlakis.

Through CGP, clinicians could find numerous different pathways for how to treat their cancer patients. Yet, access to CGP for Australian cancer patients is currently limited.

“Without national, equitable use of testing that can reliably identify the relevant genomic anomalies of tumours, many cancer patients in Australia will not receive targeted therapy at all,” said Professor David Thomas, Chief Executive Officer of the AGCMC.

Roche Australia’s General Manager, Stuart Knight, acknowledged the significance of the announcement for Australia, and for Roche.

“Australia is one of the first countries globally where Roche has secured partnership agreements with governments to advance genomic profiling and personalised healthcare, following similar announcements in Croatia and Taiwan,” said Mr Knight. “Australia has worldleading expertise in genomic research and is well-positioned to become a leader in personalised healthcare. Today’s announcement supports the Federal Health Minister’s vision to make genomics and precision medicine the standard of care in Australia.”

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