SU2C Catalyst Research Grants: Genentech-Supported Projects
The SU2C Catalyst is a new collaborative initiative intended to leverage all stages of the pharmaceutical, biotechnology, diagnostic, and devices industries (collectively referred to herein as "industry") to bring new treatments to patients as rapidly as possible. SU2C is at the intersection of a large and highly skilled scientific community consisting of its Scientific Advisory Committee, Dream Teams, Translational Research Teams, and Innovative Research Grant recipients, academic institutions, and industry. The SU2C Catalyst establishes a mechanism through which industry and academic scientists in the cancer community will conduct SU2C collaborative research projects that will deliver significant benefits for patients and society, accelerating the development of new treatments and, where appropriate, combination therapies. As the Scientific Partner in the SU2C Catalyst, the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) provides scientific oversight and conducts expert peer review and grants administration for SU2C.
The principles guiding SU2C collaborations with industry are designed to accelerate the pace of groundbreaking translational research that provides new therapies to patients rapidly:
- Integrity: Industry, academia, and SU2C will act with integrity at all times, putting patients at the center of everything we do.
- Independence: SU2C and affiliated researchers will maintain independent strategies, activities or information with unbiased scientific overview by its Executive Committee and associated Industry Steering Subcommittees.
- Transparency: SU2C will be transparent, consistent, and fair when collaborating with industry.
- Accountability: SU2C is accountable to many stakeholders and thus will not promote, endorse, or favor any particular product.
The SU2C Catalyst takes a structured and prioritized approach to early-phase clinical studies or translational research in order to accelerate the time to get new treatments to patients and bring together all the key players in a collaborative and strategic manner. The SU2C Catalyst Research Grant: Genentech-Supported project must include atezolizumab, bevacizumab (combinations only), alectinib, cobimetinib, vemurafenib, vismodegib, trastuzumab plus pertuzumab (must be in this combination only), obinutuzumab, emactuzumab, anti-CD40, or idasanutlin, alone or in combination with other compounds, biologics, diagnostics, or devices intended as therapeutic interventions, and/or methods for biomarker identification in the following thematic areas of research:
- Role of negative or positive regulatory molecules (biomarkers) as predictors of response to immune therapies in the setting of preoperative versus metastatic clinical settings.
- Neoantigen identification and predictability of clinical effects of immune therapies (checkpoints, adjuvants, endogenous versus exogenous vaccines).
- Duration of immune therapies, including after response or disease progression, and impact on immune biomarkers.
If a product is proposed for use that is marketed or is under development by another company, SU2C will act as an honest broker to secure the necessary agreements. To advance science rapidly and with robust input, multi-investigator, multi-institutional projects are required. In accordance with SU2C's mission, the project must be designed to accelerate the application of therapeutic agents or methods to the clinic (i.e., lead to patient involvement within the timeframe of the grant) and deliver near-term patient benefit through investigation by a collaborative SU2C Catalyst Genentech Team of expert investigators. The ideas should be based on perceived opportunities for success as well as high-priority areas with a critical need for rapid progress beyond current medical care. An emphasis on early phase, signal-finding clinical trials is encouraged. Clinical trials must be planned so that the final patient is enrolled by the end of the grant term.
The Principal Investigator and any Key Personnel must have acquired a doctoral or medical degree, and must be independent investigators affiliated with an academic, medical, or research institution. Applications are encouraged from the scientific community, including current and former SU2C grantees and non-SU2C affiliated scientists. Individuals on the FDA Debarment List may not apply.
Research must be carried out within the United States. There are no citizenship or residency status restrictions.
Employees or subcontractors of for-profit industry are not eligible to apply, but their participation as unfunded Collaborators is encouraged.
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The AACR requires applicants to submit an electronic application via proposalCENTRAL by 12:00 pm (noon), Eastern Time on Tuesday, December 1, 2016, using the proposalCENTRAL website at https://proposalcentral.altum.com.
The Program Guidelines and Application Instructions are available in PDF format.