Non-clinical staff ‘need more support’ in cancer trials

Speaking at Gathering Around Cancer 2025, Prof Seamus O’Reilly, Cork University Hospital, provided an update on the work of Cancer Trials Ireland (CTI). Prof O’Reilly, who is Vice Clinical Lead at CTI, described how the organisation is growing year-on-year in terms of trials that can be offered to patients.

“Today, in Ireland, patients can have access to 117 trials,” said Prof O’Reilly.

He described the CTI network of more than 90 individuals and groups in diverse locations around the world. “Integrating the patient voice into all of our trials is a pivotal factor,” Prof O’Reilly told attendees.

“Translational studies are important for existing sophisticated therapies, but a lot of our biobanks aren’t shared; they are siloed, and we fail to maximise the potential of multiple studies. But also, we lose granularity because we don’t have diverse populations, so a biomarker that is relevant to an Irish person today might not be relevant to that person in the years ahead.”

He also pointed out that CTI is aware that the majority of the staff involved in trials in Ireland are not doctors.

“We need more help for our nursing colleagues so that we can put good structures and supports in place for them, similar to what we have for our clinicians,” he explained. “Where we are today is a globally interconnected network,” Prof O’Reilly concluded. “Over the past three decades, the collaborative commitment of many individuals has led to Ireland’s integration into a global clinical trials ecosystem. Nationally, this has helped transform cancer care in ways we couldn’t have imagined. And in the next three decades, [artificial intelligence] will further transform cancer care.

“For patients to benefit from this transformation, we need secure, increased longitudinal funding, protected time for staff, and the streamlining of administrative processes.” He added that it will be vital to resource the recommendations of the national clinical trials oversight group, and to provide directed support for early career investigators, clinical and allied health leadership roles, and academic studies, including trials without drugs and climate-responsible research.