OneOncology Creates Program to Enhance Clinical Trials at Participating Community Practices

OneOncology, an oncologist network for community-based physicians and partner of independent oncology practices, announced the creation of OneOncology Research Network (OneR); this separate subsidiary is a national non-exclusive clinical trial site management organization, according to a press release.

The mission of OneR is to enhance research programs of participating community oncology practices through operational, regulatory, and research support services to help improve multicenter clinical trials.

“OneR is a community oncology network designed for and built by community oncology practices,” Lee Schwartzberg, MD, chief medical officer at OneOncology and medical director at West Cancer Center, said in a statement. “Our north star is improving the lives of everyone with cancer which is fundamentally dependent on advancing the science of oncology treatments. We look forward to working with practices and sponsors who want to expand diverse patient access to precision oncology and other high-quality cancer clinical trials through our portfolio of therapeutic and observational studies.”

Due to the importance of clinical trials for finding new and better standards of care for precision oncology, OneR will aid community practices by expanding their access to more innovative treatments for patients. While doing so, they will provide access to clinical trial sponsors to the broad population of patients treated at these community cancer centers throughout their cancer journey, as opposed to the episodic method more commonly taken at research-based academic centers. The clinical trials at community-based facilities will deliver more diversity in clinical trials in terms of geography, socioeconomics, disease status, gender, and ethnicity.

“With too many of our patients disproportionately impacted by health disparities, we believe that by providing community oncology practices with enhanced operational efficiencies we can ensure that more patients will benefit from the groundbreaking clinical trials,” Axel Grothey, MD, medical director of OneR and director of GI Cancer Research at West Cancer Center, said in a press release. “OneR will not only improve patient access to cutting-edge care, it will also help to advance scientific discovery.”

OneR’s emphasis on precision oncology will deliver innovative trial designs to clinical trials throughout multiple tumor types based on precision oncology to oncology practices working with them. This would include designs such as basket trials to see how well a novel therapy works in patients with different types of cancer with the same biomarkers or mutations, and umbrella trials for patients with one kind of cancer to receive a therapy based on their cancers molecular profile.

Since oncology practices continue to invest in clinical trial infrastructure, OneR will support partnered practices ability to increase participation in these trials with clinical trial matching technology, regulatory submissions, and by centralizing business functions. At the same time, they will ensure practices are able to maintain their flexibility to participate in other clinical trial initiatives. OneR is non-exclusive, so participating centers can be a part of other clinical trial programs as well.

_Reference:

_{1. OneOncology research network will enhance practices’ high-quality clinical trials programs while improving patients’ access to innovative oncology therapies. News release. OneOncology. October 19, 2020. Accessed October 22, 2020. https://bit.ly/2HggaVR}