The Matching Agency

Example: Neuroendocrine cancer

There are over 100,000 people in the world worth more than £20 million.

According to medical statistics, between three and five people in every 100,000 get neuroendocrine cancer every year – the same disease that killed Steve Jobs.

So, between three to five wealthy people will have neuroendocrine cancer.

Meanwhile a team at Uppsala University in Sweden (the university’s hospital is a European Center of Excellence for the treatment of neuroendocrine cancer) has published preclinical data, in international, peer-reviewed journals, of a startling new drug that caused tumours in mice to melt away. 

That doesn’t mean much in itself – kitchen bleach has the same effect – but along with the rest of the evidence, the researchers had proved the idea had promise. Ad5[CgA-E1A-miR122]PTD, to give the compound its full tooth-breaking name, was a remarkable therapeutic. 

The Chairman of the European Neuroendocrine Tumor Society wanted it to be tested in humans by “tomorrow morning”; 

In fact the drug is a bug – ‘oncolytic virus’ – that can specifically target cancer cells while leaving ordinary tissue alone.

It would be cheap to produce, simple to administer and have few suspected potential side-effects beyond mild flu. 

If the promise of the Uppsala discovery were even partially borne out in human trials, it would ease the suffering of many lives.

But it has been shelved.

No one would provide the £2 million needed to start the clinical trials.

Why not?

For drug developers, there’s not much interest in rare cancers.

For scientists, after the initial lab excitement of discovery has worn off, there’s little opportunity for glory left. 

Pushing new ideas into clinical testing is tedious, exhausting and takes time away from making other discoveries. 

Promising work that offers alternatives to the savage old therapies for such diseases is therefore difficult to fund and quickly forgotten. 

There were no suitable EU grants for the Uppsala work; 

Swedish cancer charities have shallow pockets, and the Swedish government refuses to support clinical trials as a matter of policy. 

Even if a private company could be involved, the patent situation was muddy, the target population small and the commercial risks unusually high.

This is where the Matching Agency comes in. We aim to link wealthy participant donors to potentially useful, underfunded research projects. 

More information for potential Patients

More information for Scientists with potential treatments