Celebrating 10 years at the Annual Network Meeting

16 Jun 2017

10 May saw the return of the Annual Network Meeting and, with 2017 marking the network’s 10th anniversary, it was indeed a very exciting and special event. Over 260 attendees from across the network joined us in the De Vere Grand Connaught Rooms in London.

The meeting began with a real appreciation of everything the ECMC network has done, and will continue to do in the years to come, with Sir Harpal Kumar (CRUK) and Dr Louise Wood (DoH) highlighting the network’s impressive achievements from the past decade, and trial spotlight talks from ICR and Edinburgh.

Jayne Smith provided a moving close to the morning session, sharing her own cancer journey and how joining the Combinations Alliance RADICAL trial allowed her to attend her daughter’s wedding. CRUK’s Sarah Halford tweeted: “Please thank Jayne Smith for her excellent talk ‘Patient Story’”.

A new feature to this year’s meeting was the poster session and competition. Each centre created its own, showcasing key trials, location staff and future aspirations. The winner was Glasgow, who went home with a £200 voucher towards a conference of their choice. Congrats!

In the afternoon, three parallel sessions covered topics which arose from the ECMC Leads meeting in February – patient referral, the regulatory environment and industry collaboration. Each session had a variety of speakers from across the network and regulatory authorities. Wendy Fisher (WFC), chair of the regulatory session, brilliantly summarised the need to adapt to the present day: “Patient information needs to be more acceptable and understandable. Even Aunt Agatha will be iPad-savvy now. We need to get with the times.”

On behalf of the network, we would like to thank everyone who attended for making it such a successful day.

Photography by Viv Court Photography.

To view the presentations, please click the links below:

Dr Udai Banerji, ICR; Dr Monsa Parmar, ICR; Dr Bristi Basu, Cambridge; Dr Matthew Krebs, Manchester; Professor Johann de Bono, ICR: TAX-TORC: An ECMC story

Dr Harriet Walter, Leicester: Networking success story: Junior Investigator Network Group

Dr Janet Messer, HRA - An update from the HRA: Apporoach to experiemental cancer medicine and future direction