Precision Medicine

Every cancer is different for every body. Precision Medicine, using current, widely available technologies, offers the tantalising prospect of analysing a tissue sample and treating cancer with the right drug, first time, every time. This increases positive treatment outcomes, decreases treatment times and saves countless millions on ineffective treatments. The data from each sample also helps us further map cancer genetically. Precision Medicine relies on genomics. Because the genetic material of cancers can be complex and every patient’s cancer is unique, standard therapies like chemotherapy are not always as effective as targeted, precision treatments, and they come with life-long side effects. The standard approach to cancer treatment is to offer treatment A because treatment A is effective in (say) 75% of patients. If it doesn’t work – it’s called a ‘false line of treatment’. And the patient is moved to treatment option B (the next most likely to succeed percentage wise). Connie Johnson had 4 false lines of treatment until we got the right one. But it was too late. The months and years wasted on false lines meant that her cancer had spread. LYS fights for increased access to comprehensive genomic sequencing, and treatment that starts in a petri dish where the tumour is tested – rather than the patient being tested. A personalised, targeted or precision medicine approach allows for the medicines to be tested in the lab so that the patient is administered the right drug, first time, every time. Precision medicine is expensive. To fund precision medicine means funding wholesale change from education through economics through practice (including big pharma) through super computers (where the genomics and samples and bio bank data is stored)

Some of the grant from Love Your Sister will be used to fund a part-time Aboriginal postdoctoral researcher on the Djurali Centre team. Love Your Sister has also committed $6M for precision cancer medicine form rural and regional Australia through The Molecular Screening and Therapeutics (MoST) study, which is a clinical research program aimed at finding the best treatment for patients with advanced, hard-to-treat cancers based on their unique cancer genetic profile. Half of all patients who have received a matched therapy on the program have doubled their life expectancy. The program is headed by Professor David Thomas, Head of the Genomic Cancer Medicine lab at Garvan and CEO of Omico, the Australian Genomic Cancer Medicine Centre, and is active at more than 20 centres around the country, but predominantly in large population centres – making it difficult to access for the 28% of Australians that live in regional and rural areas.

The Garvan Institute and Love Your Sister Partnership

Founded in 1963, the Garvan Institute of Medical Research brings together world-leading researchers and clinicians in a collaborative ecosystem with one mission: to harness all the information encoded in the genome to better predict, prevent, diagnose and treat human disease.

OMICO (previously, the Australian Genomic Cancer Medicine Centre) is changing the way we fight cancer by accelerating access to precision oncology. Founded out of the Garvan Institute of Medical Research, OMICO is a national, independent, not-for-profit organisation uniting Australia’s best cancer institutes, researchers, clinicians, industry and government like never before.

Together, Garvan and OMICO launched the Molecular Screening and Therapeutics (MoST) trial, an innovative and radical new clinical trials program aimed at delivering precision medicine by finding the best treatment for patients with advanced and hard-to-treat cancers based on their unique cancer genetic profile. To the end of December 2023, 7,146 patients had been recruited to MoST, 81% of whom had rare or less common cancers. Of these individuals, 4,560 were referred for a new or additional treatment, with half of all patients doubling their life expectancy. 

Love Your Sister (LYS) is a long-term supporter of Garvan and OMICO. In 2022, they joined forces to ensure that the impact and benefits of MoST could be rolled out to support individuals with cancer in rural and regional Australia, enabling patients to undergo molecular screening and potential drug matching as part of the program. Specifically, at least 10 regional sites are being added to the national precision oncology network which should double the survival rate of this population.

In 2024, MoST will transition to a new program called the Cancer Screening Program (CaSP). CaSP will build on the success of MoST in demonstrating improved outcomes for patients, enabling access to comprehensive genomic profiling for more advanced cancer patients earlier in the cancer patient journey, including rural, regional and remote patients.