Susan Marlin
President & CEO, Clinical Trials Ontario
Imagine a future where we can tailor disease prevention, diagnosis and treatment to individual patients, based on a deep understanding of their genetic and molecular profile. That’s the dream of personalized medicine. And while it’s still in its infancy, clinical trials are getting underway to make this innovative approach to healthcare a reality for Canadians.
The outcomes of personalized medicine trials have the potential to change how we think about and deliver healthcare. And trial participants play a vital role in making those trials possible.
Earlier this year, The Ottawa Hospital launched a clinical trial to study Canadian-made CAR-T cells – immune system cells extracted from the patient’s blood, genetically modified to be more active, then re-administered to the patient to fight cancer cells. The trial will test the safety and efficacy of the cells in fighting leukemia and lymphoma and, if successful, the approach may have implications for other forms of cancer. Last year, a study at Lawson Health Research Institute examined whether the DNA of Crohn’s disease patients can be used to identify their risk of severe disease. They found that patients with a specific genetic variant are much more likely to need surgery earlier in their care journey, enabling them to personalize treatment plans. And for over a decade, researchers at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) have been studying gene-guided treatment for mental illness. Through clinical trials, they found that genetic testing is effective in guiding treatment for nicotine addiction as well as depression. As a result, physicians and psychiatrists can now identify which medications are most likely to work for a given patient.
The outcomes of personalized medicine trials have the potential to change how we think about and deliver healthcare. And trial participants play a vital role in making those trials possible.
Clinical trials depend on participants who offer their time and energy to help move the research forward. For many, clinical trials provide urgently needed and sometimes life-saving therapies. If we want to continue advancing personalized medicine in Canada, we need to ensure that people are aware of the clinical trials that are underway and able to make informed decisions about participation. The Clinical Trials Ontario (CTO) Trial Finder app is one helpful resource that can be used to search for active trials in Canada.
Equally important to clinical trial success is understanding and improving the experience of trial participants. By learning from the insights and experiences of patients and trial participant, we are able to improve the quality, attractiveness and accessibility of clinical trials, enhancing our future activities.
The participant experience should be a positive one. Providing tools to help navigate trial complexities, reimbursing expenses related to trials, sharing findings and results, and simply thanking participants are just some of the measures we can take to ensure participants feel valued and informed. More examples can be found in CTO’s recently published Participant Experience Toolkit.
Personalized medicine is the future of healthcare and clinical trials are essential in helping us get there. CTO is proud to support the clinical trials community – from participants to researchers to industry – in advancing personalized medicine to bring new therapies to patients more quickly.
