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BTOG 2026 | Challenges and funding hurdles in lung cancer clinical research
Mariana Brandao, MD, PhD, Jules Bordet Institute, Brussels, Belgium, comments on the challenges in clinical research in lung cancer, highlighting the issue of funding as a major obstacle, with public investments in cancer research lagging behind, and the need to rely on partnerships with pharmaceutical companies. The therapeutic landscape, particularly in lung cancer, is very complex, where rapid evolution can render trial designs obsolete. This interview took place at the 2026 British Thoracic Oncology Group (BTOG) congress in Edinburgh, UK.
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Transcript
well there are multiple the first one is of course funding because doing clinical research is becoming increasingly expensive and complex and we we don’t have enough funding compared especially with pharma companies so at the RTC we have a dedicated department to look for European grants, to look for charities. And of course, most of our money comes from partnerships with pharmaceutical companies...
well there are multiple the first one is of course funding because doing clinical research is becoming increasingly expensive and complex and we we don’t have enough funding compared especially with pharma companies so at the RTC we have a dedicated department to look for European grants, to look for charities. And of course, most of our money comes from partnerships with pharmaceutical companies. And I think that’s the main challenge is that we are clearly lagging behind on that in terms of public investments in cancer research. And the second one is the very complex therapeutic landscape that, especially in lung cancer, is evolving so fast that any idea that you have today in six months might be obsolete. And knowing that all of this takes one year, two years, three years to start recruiting, by the time you start recruiting your trial design might no longer be interesting or applicable so I think that’s the main challenge and also of course I also think we’ll have to adapt and take advantage of the use of artificial intelligence and also leverage the use of real-world data, maybe creating synthetic arms and other ways to accelerate this drug development. We’ll have a session this afternoon on that, so I’m also very eager to hear about that.
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