Trials Acceleration Programme

Leukaemia & Lymphoma Research has launched a unique network of clinical trials centres, which will give blood cancer patients access to new life-saving drugs, sooner and improve survival rates. 

The initiative called ‘Trials Acceleration Programme’ is an innovative clinical trials network that links 13 leading hospitals in the UK and will mean that patients have access to cutting edge treatments at their local hospital, more quickly.

Clinical trials

Every 20 minutes one person is diagnosed with a blood cancer in the UK.

Clinical trials are vital for moving breakthroughs discovered in the laboratory into new treatments.

Often these give hope to patients who do not respond to conventional drugs the chance to try new or alternative treatments. Without clinical trials progress cannot be made for patients in the future.

The challenge

Around 30,000 people are diagnosed with a blood cancer in the UK every year. These patients are being denied potentially life-saving drugs because the clinical trials needed before these treatments can be made available are difficult to set up and slow to deliver results.

Part of the problem is that only 6% of blood cancer patients take part in clinical trials in the UK, compared with up to 18% for patients with other forms of cancer. Also at the moment clinical trials take a long time- four to ten years - to complete.

Creating the clinical trials network

Leukaemia & Lymphoma Research is investing £2.3 million into the new clinical trials network to speed up access to new drugs for blood cancers.

The network links 13 leading hospitals across the UK and is managed by a central hub in Birmingham. Here there is an expert team are in place to co-ordinate the delivery of world-class clinical trials across the centres within two years.

As well as implementing a structured framework through which to save more lives, Leukaemia & Lymphoma Research will provide each centre with the vital resources necessary to carry out clinical trials including research nurses and data managers.

Access to life-saving drugs

With coordinated clinical trials teams spread around the country, blood cancer patients will be able to take part in a national clinical trial at their local blood cancer treatment centre, regardless of where in the country they live.

Leukaemia & Lymphoma Research will work with pharmaceutical companies to make up to £50 million of new life-saving drugs available to patients in the UK.

Research is vital

Leukaemia & Lymphoma Research is uniquely positioned to make this bold move following 50 years of innovative research into blood cancers. This is now possible because we have extensive knowledge of the basic biology of these cancers.  

The strong community of scientists in laboratories and doctors in hospital clinics built by Leukaemia & Lymphoma Research is key to this initiative.