Two precision medicine drugs from CONNECT partner GSK are the newest additions to the clinical trial IMPRESS.
More than 200 cancer patients have received an offer of new treatment through the nationwide clinical trial IMPRESS since it started with the first drugs in 2021. New drugs have been included in the study over this period, and the latest two are an immunotherapy and a PARP inhibitor from the company GSK. With this addition, the clinical trial can now offer 48 patients innovative cancer treatments.
"We are very pleased with this! Several patients who are included to IMPRESS have changes in their tumors which indicates that they will have effect from treatment with an immunotherapy or PARP inhibitors,” says Dr. Katarina Puco, Study doctor in IMPRESS-Norway, in a press release from IMPRESS.
Strengthening collaboration
GSK is a partner in CONNECT, the public-private consortium driving the implementation of precision cancer medicine in Norway. In this forum, thirty partners are addressing key obstacles and piloting novel solutions to transform the current practice. CONNECT arranges both scientific and political events about precision medicine. "GSK is very happy to contribute to more patients gaining access to trial treatment through the national trial IMPRESS. Strengthening of the collaboration around clinical studies and research in Norway is an important focus for GSK locally and this is a contribution to achieve this goal,” says Hege Edvardsen, Acting Medical Director GSK, in a press release from IMPRESS.
Part of a European network
IMPRESS-Norway is part of a network of precision cancer medicine trials in Europe, which has formalised the collaboration through the EU project PRIME-ROSE. "There are many rare forms of cancer that are included in IMPRESS. Fortunately, many of these patients have changes in their cancer which indicate that they may have an effect from drugs that are only approved for one or more of the more common forms of cancer. Through IMPRESS, we get the opportunity to test the treatment effect on these rare cancers, but since they are rare, it is extra important to collect data on treatment effect from many countries. We are therefore pleased that GSK is supporting several of the precision medicine initiatives in Europe,” says Professor Åslaug Helland, National PI for IMPRESS-Norway, in the press release. Read more about the IMPRESS study here: https://impress-norway.no/en/about-the-study/