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About CTEP's Support for Cancer Clinical Trials: From Idea to Practice-Changing Results

In NCI's Division of Cancer Treatment and Diagnosis (DCTD), the Cancer Therapy Evaluation Program (CTEP) makes agents available, reviews trial ideas, and oversees trial conduct across the CTEP-supported clinical trials networks: 

 Read on to see how a network trial goes from an idea to practice-changing results.

New Agents and Approaches

What is an IND?

Organizations must submit an Investigational New Drug Application, or IND, to the US Food and Drug Administration before starting clinical trials of investigational agents.

NCI/DCTD holds the INDs for many cancer treatment agents. 

Agents Under CTEP IND

The NCI Experimental Therapeutics (NEXT) Program selects agents for NCI-sponsored pre-clinical and clinical development. NCI negotiates Collaborative Research and Development Agreements (CRADAs) to develop and evaluate these agents under CTEP IND. 

For some of these agents, NCI may assemble a drug development Project Team to design the scope of NCI’s initial multi-institutional, multi-disciplinary drug development plan for the proposed agent(s). As part of a Project Team, extramural clinical, translational, and basic scientists collaborate with NCI determine which clinical trials will be conducted across the CTEP clinical trials network sites and how translational science objectives should be incorporated. 

After an agent development plan has been approved and collaborative agreements signed, agents under CTEP IND are available for qualified investigators to propose pre-clinical and clinical research studies. In the ETCTN, all trials involve agents under CTEP IND.

Other Agents and Modalities

Many NCTN and PEP-CTN trials involve agents under CTEP IND, but these networks are also able to lead trials under their IND or trials that are IND exempt. Trials that are IND exempt may be studying investigational radiation therapy, surgery, multiple modalities, or changes to the dose or schedule of approved agents.

Clinical Trial Ideas

Where do clinical trial ideas come from?

Lead organizations that make up the ETCTN, NCTN, PBTC, and PEP-CTN draw on their robust membership of scientific leaders to identify and develop ideas for trials that are scientifically promising and statistically rigorous.

Clinical trial ideas are submitted to NCI for review through two primary pathways:

  • Smaller, earlier phase trials are submitted by the lead organization within the ETCTN, NCTN, PBTC, or PEP-CTN as Letters of Intent (LOIs) and a decision is made by the NCI CTEP Protocol Review Committee (PRC).
  • Larger, later phase trials are submitted by the NCTN Group as Concepts and a decision is made by the NCTN Steering Committees. 

Either way, the LOI or Concept is evaluated by reviewers from across NCI.  Depending on the trial design, this may include people with expertise in:  

Protocol Development

Who organizes all these documents?

CTEP's Protocol Information Office (PIO) is the central hub for documents coming in and decisions going out of CTEP. 

  • LOI, concept, and protocol documents are all submitted by the lead organization to PIO.
  • PIO assigns and oversees all review tasks and coordinates CTEP's review meetings.
  • PIO sends review decisions and comments back to the lead organization.

After an LOI or Concept is approved, the lead organization works on developing the trial protocol and informed consent based on the approved trial designs. The ETCTN has support from CTEP's Central Protocol Writing Service (CPWS) to write these documents.

When the lead organization submits the protocol and consent documents, they are closely reviewed by NCI experts and a full review is conducted by the CTEP Protocol Review Committee. Reviewers are assigned based on the content of the protocol, and can include disease experts, agent experts, radiation oncologists, biostatisticians, regulatory specialists, pharmacists, imaging experts, translational scientists, quality of life reviewers from the NCI Division of Cancer Prevention, and others as needed. 

CTEP communicates with the lead organization and study team throughout protocol revisions until a protocol and consent are finalized. 

If the study is under CTEP IND, then CTEP is the study sponsor and coordinates closely with the FDA for regulatory submissions and the company for drug distribution. 

When the protocol and consent have been approved by all NCI reviewers, the study is sent to the NCI CIRB for review. 

Preparing for the Trial to Open

As the trial gets close to approval, CTEP's Cancer Trials Support Unit (CTSU) works with the lead organization to develop support documents that help sites more easily open the study: 

  • National Coverage Analyses help sites evaluate what items in the protocol are billable to insurance.
  • EMR templates to help sites implement the protocol in their local electronic medical record systems.

In preparation for the study to activate, or open for enrollment, CTEP contractors work with the lead protocol organization to set up the study in CTEP systems. CTEP's support for network clinical trials includes electronic applications that make it possible for sites to more easily and efficiently do things like:

  • Enroll patients
  • Report information about how patients are doing
  • Order and track trial drugs under CTEP IND
  • Report side effects

After a Trial Opens

After the protocol is finalized and the trial opens to enrollment, CTEP oversight and collaboration with the lead organization continues throughout the life of the trial. 

For all trials run by CTEP's networks, CTEP reviews all proposed amendments to the trial, makes updates in CTEP systems as necessary, monitors accrual, or enrollment, to the trial using our slow accrual tracking rules, and ensures compliance with regulations and NIH grant requirements. 

For trials conducted under CTEP IND, CTEP also distributes the IND agent, monitors adverse events, coordinates communication with the company collaborator, submits reports to the FDA, and generally completes all activities required of an IND sponsor. 

Recent Trial Results

Phase 3 Trial of Cabozantinib to Treat Advanced Neuroendocrine Tumors

Cabozantinib significantly improved progression-free survival in patients with previously treated, progressive advanced extrapancreatic or pancreatic neuroendocrine tumors. (1)

Blinatumomab in Standard-Risk B-Cell Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia in Children 

Adding blinatumomab to combination chemotherapy in patients with newly diagnosed childhood standard-risk B-cell ALL of average or higher risk of relapse significantly improved disease-free survival. (2)

Adjuvant Pembrolizumab versus Observation in Muscle-Invasive Urothelial Carcinoma

Among patients with high-risk muscle-invasive urothelial carcinoma after radical surgery, disease-free survival was significantly longer with adjuvant pembrolizumab than with observation. (3)

Selected References

  1. Chan JA, Geyer S, Zemla T, Knopp MV, Behr S, Pulsipher S, Ou FS, Dueck AC, Acoba J, Shergill A, Wolin EM, Halfdanarson TR, Konda B, Trikalinos NA, Tawfik B, Raj N, Shaheen S, Vijayvergia N, Dasari A, Strosberg JR, Kohn EC, Kulke MH, O'Reilly EM, Meyerhardt JA. Phase 3 Trial of Cabozantinib to Treat Advanced Neuroendocrine Tumors. N Engl J Med. 2025 Feb 13;392(7):653-665.

    [PubMed Abstract]
  2. Gupta S, Rau RE, Kairalla JA, Rabin KR, Wang C, Angiolillo AL, Alexander S, Carroll AJ, Conway S, Gore L, Kirsch I, Kubaney HR, Li AM, McNeer JL, Militano O, Miller TP, Moyer Y, O'Brien MM, Okada M, Reshmi SC, Shago M, Wagner E, Winick N, Wood BL, Haworth-Wright T, Zaman F, Zugmaier G, Zupanec S, Devidas M, Hunger SP, Teachey DT, Raetz EA, Loh ML. Blinatumomab in Standard-Risk B-Cell Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia in Children. N Engl J Med. 2025 Feb 27;392(9):875-891.

    [PubMed Abstract]
  3. Apolo AB, Ballman KV, Sonpavde G, Berg S, Kim WY, Parikh R, Teo MY, Sweis RF, Geynisman DM, Grivas P, Chatta G, Reichert ZR, Kim JW, Bilen MA, McGregor B, Singh P, Tripathi A, Cole S, Simon N, Niglio S, Ley L, Cordes L, Srinivas S, Huang J, Odegaard M, Watt C, Petrylak D, Hoffman-Censits J, Wen Y, Hahn O, Mitchell C, Tan A, Streicher H, Sharon E, Moon H, Woods M, Halabi S, Perez Burbano G, Morris MJ, Rosenberg JE. Adjuvant Pembrolizumab versus Observation in Muscle-Invasive Urothelial Carcinoma. N Engl J Med. 2025 Jan 2;392(1):45-55.

    [PubMed Abstract]
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