ABSTRACT

85In 2012, an Institute of Medicine Report titled “A National Cancer Clinical Trials System for the 21st Century: Reinvigorating the NCI Cooperative Group Program” emphasized the critical need for a public clinical trials system. This report stated four goals for the modernization of the traditional clinical trial system: 1) to improve the speed and efficiency of the design, launch, and conduct of clinical trials; 2) to incorporate innovative science and trial design into cancer clinical trials; 3) to improve prioritization, selection, support, and completion of cancer clinical trials; and 4) to incentivize participation of patients and physicians in clinical trials. 1 This report, and others, inspired collaborative efforts by Friends of Cancer Research (Friends), the National Cancer Institute (NCI), the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the Foundation for the National Institutes of Health (FNIH), leaders in biotechnology, patient advocates, and the Southwest Oncology Group (SWOG) to develop a “master protocol” clinical trial called Lung-MAP for the study of squamous cell lung cancer treatments.