ENCCA
Safe and effective innovative therapies are urgently needed to improve cure rates and the quality of cure in children with cancer. Advances in knowledge of the human genome, cancer cell biology and the development of high-throughput technologies have increased our knowledge of tumour biology. This has paved the way for identifying targets for the design of anticancer compounds with new mechanisms of action, new profiles of antitumour activity as well as new toxicity profiles.
There has therefore been a dramatic increase in the number of new anticancer compounds under development worldwide, and oncology has become the leading area for drug development. However, the translational gap between the basic scientific knowledge of paediatric tumour cell biology and defining the mechanisms that drive these cancers remains wide. Furthermore, access for children to innovative compounds developed for adults by pharmaceutical companies has been extremely poor in Europe in the last 20 years. This is in contrast to the USA, where many public programmes have provided easier access to new compounds to the paediatric oncology community.
ENCCA will speed up and facilitate the introduction of safe and effective innovative therapies in the care of children and adolescents with cancer.
For further information, please visit: http://www.encca.eu
