European Organisation for Research and Treatment of Cancer (EORTC)

• The European Organisation for Research and Treatment of Cancer (EORTC) is a non-governmental, non-profit, academic
  clinical research organisation, which unites clinical cancer research experts throughout Europe and across the globe in defining better treatments for cancer patients to prolong their survival and improve their quality of life. Both international and multidisciplinary, spanning across a wide range of multicentre clinical research programmes, EORTC offers an integrated and patient-centred approach to therapeutic strategies and quality of life by testing new strategies based on existing (as well as new) drugs, surgery, and radiotherapy for all types of cancers including rare tumours – in the patients’ best interest. Its activities are coordinated from EORTC Headquarters, a unique international clinical research infrastructure based in Brussels, Belgium.
• For further information, please visit the EORTC website: www.eortc.org

• Building on 60 years of existence, EORTC is the place for clinical investigators and scientists to address oncological challenges through an independent and international approach. EORTC conducts practice-changing clinical research to optimise therapeutic strategies, delivers multidisciplinary datasets to answer key clinical questions and patient needs, and substantially contributes to education on clinical research methodology.
• Spanning across tumours in times of disease fragmentation and histologyagnostic approaches, EORTC serves as a unique clinical and translational research infrastructure to reach patients and their biological material with solutions at the crossroads of science, medicine, and public health in compliance with all applicable regulatory standards.
• At the forefront of European policy for clinical oncology, EORTC advocates for structuring independent clinical research in a continuum of drug development into access based on robust, sharable datasets. Recognised as a cancer clinical research infrastructure by the 2021 Porto Declaration, EORTC now builds on the new Cancer Medicine Forum co-chaired with EMA to address questions from academia related to cancer drug development and prioritise research focused on improving the use of cancer medicines. The Forum will also be a place to discuss the uptake of academic work in regulatory decisionmaking

EORTC’s main areas of interventions are multifold:

• Clinical research programmes across tumours including rare cancers: EORTC’s scientific strategy focuses on practice-changing public health trials, also addressing early-stage disease and local treatments. EORTC also promotes biology translational research across cancers and gives high priority to all programmes that encompass quality of life or address specific patient populations. Many EORTC datasets have changed practice and the life of cancer patients.
• Multidisciplinarity, including specific programmes on radiation oncology: Addressing loco-regional disease with specific research programmes to optimise treatments in situations where cure may still be possible, EORTC prioritises combination approaches using radiation oncology.
• Dedicated infrastructures: To achieve the above, EORTC has established integrated infrastructures, which offer solutions for improving access to patients, their treatments, and their biological material, for real-world understanding and hypothesis-raising to be as inclusive as possible. SPECTA for instance is EORTC’s translational research infrastructure while E2-RADIatE is its radiation oncology platform, currently focusing on oligometastatic patients.
• Quality Assurance (QA) programmes: EORTC’s strategy is built on the capacity to address relevant clinical questions and generate high-quality data. Integral to its operational infrastructures, high-quality multidimensional data are secured through several programmes sustained by relevant software such as imaging, QA in radiation oncology and surgery, QA on biospecimens, etc.
• Methodological research: Science and research evolve at a very rapid pace. New forms of clinical trials such as (but not limited to) complex trials and exploitation of real-world data require research on research methodology to structure the development of agents and technologies. EORTC dedicates a specific research agenda to the evolution of methodology in cancer clinical and translational research.
• Partnerships and data sharing: Partnerships and data exchange represent the optimal method for intellectual challenge and rapid resolution of important medical questions. EORTC gives attention to these key aspects through its policies in order to maximise such exchanges.
• Regulations and policies for clinical trials: EORTC is part of the stakeholder group contributing to piloting the implementation of the EU Clinical Trial Regulation, bringing in an academic point of view. EORTC also contributes to all relevant consultations by the EU institutions