Dear Colleagues,

I hope you are finding time to enjoy family and friends this summer. Typically, during the summer months SITC leadership holds our Annual Strategic Retreat. This year, the retreat will take place in August and one of the key topics of conversation will be how SITC can address, what we’re calling, the Crisis in Clinical Research.

Through discussions with key stakeholders in academia, industry, and government, it is apparent that there is a crisis in clinical trial administration caused by many existing factors that were exacerbated by the pandemic. The crisis is having a significant negative impact on cancer drug development and patient care. Leveraging our convening powers, SITC is leading the national conversation around this crisis and is committed to finding collaborative solutions that ultimately reduce the administrative burden of clinical trials while increasing patient access to safe and effective clinical trials.

We invite you to join this discussion by registering for a vital meeting next month – Crisis in Clinical Research Virtual Summit – which will be held on Aug. 17 at 10 a.m. ET. The summit will bring together key oncology experts from academia, contract research organizations, pharmaceutical companies, major professional organizations, industry and government – including the FDA and the National Cancer Institute – to lead a conversation around the hurdles facing clinical trial administration.

I hope you’ll join us in taking this initial step to address the crisis in clinical research. I very much look forward to the discussion and the positive impact we can have on patient access to critical clinical trials.

Sincerely,

Patrick Hwu, MD
SITC President