SITC Resource Library

The Global Access to Immunotherapy: Closing the Gaps Workshop was held virtually on December 9-10, 2020. Available here are the presentation slides and video from Session 1: Setting the Stage.

Workshop Organizers

• David Kaufman, MD, PhD – Third Rock Ventures 
• Samir Khleif, MD – Georgetown University 

Access to cancer immunotherapies, particularly PD-1 checkpoint blockade, is restricted in low- and middle-income countries (LMIC) relative to high-income countries (HIC). Aside from health economic barriers, key issues that need to be addressed to facilitate access include: defining the minimal hospital, staff and pharmacy requirements for safe administration and monitoring of therapy; understanding how specific co-morbidities, environmental factors and local cancer epidemiology influence the safety and efficacy profile of cancer immunotherapy; understanding the regulatory and EC/IRB requirements to study and ultimately register novel immunotherapies in LMIC; and determining the most impactful approaches to provider and community education.

The purpose of the workshop was to bring together immunotherapy experts from HIC with experts on cancer delivery and research from LMIC to define optimal approaches to the above challenges. The meeting focused on the scientific, educational and implementation barriers described above, rather than health economics and sustainable funding, with the belief that addressing the former will create more momentum to solve for the latter.

To view the full workshop agenda, please click here.