Mapping the influence of patient groups' attitudes towards the scientific regulation of and access to new anti-cancer drugs in the US, the UK and the EU (360G-Wellcome-082853_Z_07_Z)

Before patients can access new chemical or biological medicinal products to treat specific diseases or conditions, these products must undergo extensive preclinical and clinical testing, and their risks and benefits must be evaluated by expert scientists in national and supra-national drug regulatory agencies. Patient organisations may view the practices, standards and 'expectations' of regulatory science either as facilitating patients# demands to optimal drug treatment, or as obstructing their access to needed medicines. Through an in-depth, international comparative study of 13 cancer patient organisations in the US, UK and EU, this research seeks to develop a social scientific understanding of the influences on patient organizations' attitudes towards the scientific regulation of new cancer therapies and their response to various proposals to speed patient access to treatment through the acceleration (or by-passing) of specific stages of drug testing and/ or regulatory review. The study would seek to understand how attitudes towards, and modes of engagement with this aspect of biomedical science have formed and changed over time. The research would also attempt to understand how and why different patient organizations come to adopt divergent protection from toxic or minimally effective medicines and patients' interests in accessing potentially life-extending drugs.