The Convening Experts in Oncology to Address Children’s Health (COACH) project gathers a multi-stakeholder group on a quarterly basis to review aggregated cancer research data and help prioritize decisions for preclinical testing. Since launching in 2022, COACH has held four meetings designed to foster increased discussion and collaboration across the entire field of pediatric oncology. Quarterly COACH meeting participants include the National Cancer Institute (NCI), U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), European Medicines Agency (EMA), advocacy groups, representatives from the pharmaceutical industry, members of the Pediatric Preclinical Proof of Concept Platform (ITCC-P4) project, and the Pediatric Preclinical In Vivo Testing Consortium (PIVOT).

When asked about the impact of the COACH project in galvanizing action across pediatric oncology, Tetyana Murza, Senior Project Manager, Cancer, FNIH, emphasized that “it is important to do a systematic review of existing data around targets to identify which of them might prove to be the most critical to developing new therapies for specific childhood cancers.”

The FNIH works to connect the world’s leading public and private organizations to accelerate medical breakthroughs.