Most children with poor prognosis cancers in Canada are only able to access innovative therapies that may help in their care outside of the context of the conventional clinical trials. This is due to a variety of reasons including a lack of early phase pediatric trials in Canada and the lengthy health technology assessment that is required prior to the market authorization of the therapies.

Often, pediatric oncologists are left to navigate the complex and time-consuming pathways and to advocate for their patients to access novel therapies that include industry or provincial compassionate access programs (to use already approved drugs in Canada for other indications), the Health Canada Special Access Programs (for drugs not currently approved for any indication in Canada), or Health Canada Single Patient Study (SPS) development (for therapies with limited pediatric safety data). As we continue to systematically address our ability to identify novel therapies through precision oncology and attempt to obtain molecularly informed therapies, we are now faced with a major obstacle – the drug access gap.

The National Pediatric Oncology Drug Access Navigator (DAN-PO) was established to address the need for assistance for pediatric oncologists in Canada to access innovative drug therapies for patients with hard-to-cure cancers. To date, DAN-PO has supported and led several initiatives to improve access, including the development of an innovative drug access database, innovative therapy research projects, clinical trials and SPS protocol development support, and the facilitation of compassionate access or alternate pathways for commercial drugs.

The DAN-PO’s work is crucial to ACCESS’ mission, “to ensure that every child in Canada has access to the latest scientific advances, diagnostic tools, innovative therapies and supportive care”. ACCESS’ support of the DAN-PO role will help enable pan-Canadian drug access support for clinicians and the development, maintenance and sharing a national drug access database. Additionally, the DAN-PO will provide expert consultation for clinicians and investigators developing clinical trials and Health Canada SPSs, and develop an inclusive Community of Practice for education and advocacy efforts in Canada.

For more information, please contact Tricia Schneider.