A newly developed partnership between five pharmaceutical companies and the National Cancer Institute (NCI) will provide US $6 million of funding to increase enrollment in early-phase clinical trials (http://www3.cancer.gov/cancercenters/announcements/PA-03-501.pdf). In this unique public–private collaboration, the National Institutes of Health (NIH), along with the pharmaceutical manufacturers, will provide selected cancer centres with funding to design and implement new approaches to increase patient participation in Phase I and Phase II cancer trials. NCI-funded cancer centres can apply for up to US $600,000 of funding per year for two years. Half of the US $6 million of funding will be provided by the NCI and half will be provided by the industrial partners. The NCI expects to make 5–8 awards.

The funds are to be used by the cancer centres to develop new approaches for overcoming barriers to enrolling patients in early-phase trials. Some of these obstacles include inadequate understanding of the importance of clinical trials by the public and health-care professionals, inadequate compensation for participation, increasing regulatory requirements and over-burdened institutional review boards. Public wariness to clinical research, geographical barriers and inadequate peer recognition of physicians that conduct early-phase trials also prevent the enrollment of cancer patients.

The NCI plans to use what it learns from this pilot study to develop models that can be disseminated to other cancer centers and research institutions. The five pharmaceutical partners that will provide funding are Aventis, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Eli Lilly, GlaxoSmithKline and Novartis.