One of the largest of its kind, the imCORE (immunotherapy Centers of Research Excellence) Network was launched in Washington DC in November 2016 bringing together a large global community of leading experts in cancer immunotherapy who share ideas and work together.
The Network’s membership currently involves 27 leading cancer research institutions from 10 countries across the world. Experts from these centres of excellence, as well as from Roche, are working together to identify and prioritise the most promising new treatment approaches in cancer immunotherapy.
The imCORE members are united by the same common goal: to accelerate pre-clinical and clinical research in cancer immunotherapy to find a cure for cancer and transform patient lives. Roche has a long-term commitment to the imCORE Network, and is investing up to 100 million Swiss Francs to support research collaborations.
A continuous learning loop
imCORE research is being performed within a common scientific framework that encourages pre-clinical, clinical and translational research to accelerate progress in the cancer immunotherapy field, with the ultimate goal of improving treatment outcomes for people with cancer. Ongoing projects range from pre-clinical studies to better characterise immune phenotypes (tumour profiles) of cancer and mechanisms of immune response and escape, through to clinical trials evaluating new therapies and novel combination strategies.
Each centre within the imCORE Network was selected for its diverse expertise, ongoing research, advanced technology platforms, and access to patients in the field of cancer immunotherapy. The Network draws upon this collective expertise and also utilises Roche technologies and scientists’ knowledge of drug discovery and development and immune biology. Ultimately this will lead to optimal design and cutting-edge research in cancer immunology and immunotherapy.
By supporting pre-clinical and clinical research, imCORE seeks to drive innovation from the lab to the clinic and back again in a continuous ‘learning loop’. This approach informs clinical trial design by helping researchers to better select treatments—both monotherapy and combination therapies—that are most likely to benefit individual patients.
Over 60 projects and counting
Expediting the clinical trials process is essential in order to provide patients with faster access to new treatments. Under imCORE’s collaborative model, operational processes, patient enrolment and collection of data are streamlined. These improvements have allowed investigators across all study sites to see the benefits with respect to shorter study timelines and quality of data.
With nearly 60 collaborative research projects already underway since imCORE’s launch, and proposals for many more projects currently under consideration, the imCORE Network is already showing early signs of promise for advancing cancer immunotherapy research and finding potential cures for cancer.
For more information about the imCORE Network, please email the imCORE team.
Collaboration in cancer immunotherapy
Research to extend the benefit of cancer immunotherapy is taking place all over the world. Within imCORE, we believe new treatments can be found quicker if we all work together. imCORE is a network of 27 leading cancer immunotherapy research institutions, collaborating to accelerate progress in CIT research and optimise outcomes for cancer patients. We’re talking about true partnerships, that leverage our collective resource, expertise and cutting-edge technologies, to identify solutions. Together, we can advance exponentially faster than when working in isolation.