Who is it for?
Clinical Development Partnerships (CDP) is primarily targeted at leading pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies who have large pipelines and are forced to prioritise which agents they take into clinical development. If you are from a small company with a limited portfolio then this is not for you but you may wish to contact the Cancer Research UK Drug Development Office to see how they may be able to assist you.
Large companies, particularly in the case of pharmaceutical companies, have very diverse portfolios covering a range of different diseases. Each therapeutic area has a different probability of success; therefore, companies construct their portfolio in such a way to ensure they undertake sufficient numbers of Phase I studies overall in order to get the desired number of NCEs to market. Rigorous selection criteria are applied to determine which agents will be taken forward. Oncology agents have a lower than average success rate for reaching the market compared with treatments for other diseases and may be deselected on this basis alone. Coupled with the general issues faced in drug development the hurdles to enter Phase I can be very challenging. As a result many promising cancer agents have been shelved and their clinical development discontinued.
With companies under pressure to meet business objectives and patient demands they must make drug development more cost efficient and maximise the value of their shelved assets. Drugs with a lower probability of getting to market often have a higher expected return if they succeed and, in the case of niche indications, agents may be fast tracked through clinical development bringing them to market sooner. Working with CDP provides companies with an alternative route to take these agents through early clinical development and increase the number of successful new treatments being developed for cancer.
