ASCO is co-sponsoring the “Accelerating Anticancer Agent Development and Validation Workshop.” The goal of the workshop is to expedite the development and validation processes for new anticancer and cancer prevention agents so they can be made available to patients at an accelerated rate.

June 18-20, 2008
Bethesda North Marriott Hotel and Conference Center
North Bethesda, MD

Background:
The Accelerating Anticancer Agent Development and Validation Workshop is designed to bring together leaders in clinical and translational cancer research from academia, industry, NCI, and FDA to assist investigators in understanding and improving the process of cancer drug development. This three-day collaborative workshop will provide a “small group” atmosphere where participants will have the option of bringing to this workshop an agent or strategy with promising early-stage clinical data for discussion. An FDA representative, a biostatistician and an academic/industrial clinical investigator will be assigned to each small group to discuss learners' development strategies, including the potential pitfalls and the potential acceptability of the evidence produced by their strategy to support a new drug application (NDA). The strategic plans that the learners develop during the workshop will consider all feasible options and represent a scientifically sound, medically justified and FDA-consistent proposal for development. The small group sessions will be supplemented with lectures, roundtable breakout sessions and a “One-on-One with the Faculty” session.

Who Should Apply:
The workshop is designed for scientists with at least four years of clinical trial experience and previous research experience in cancer drug development in an academic, industry, or government agency setting. Academic participants should be at the assistant professor level with an interest in new approaches to developing or enhancing agents or combinations of agents for the diagnosis, treatment or prevention of cancer (postdoctoral students and fellows are not eligible). In addition, those with limited experience in the regulatory aspects of oncology drug development would benefit greatly from this workshop.

Registration:
As the number of workshop participants will be limited, early enrollment is encouraged. Registration will be closed when course capacity has been reached. Only online applications will be accepted.

Official Website:
For more information, including the 2008 online application, please go to http://www.acceleratingworkshop.org/ The official brochure is available here.