In a quiet corner of South London thousands of top scientists and researchers are working on the next big breakthroughs in cancer treatments. The London Cancer Hub in the Belmont area of Sutton is already a bustling campus but will grow in the coming years. It is expected to create 13,000 jobs, 7,000 in the life-sciences and another 6,200 in the site’s construction.
The hub was built around the existing Royal Marsden cancer hospital. It includes a Maggie’s Cancer Centre, providing free support for patients, the Institute of Cancer Research (ICR) and even secondary school, Harris Academy Sutton, on part of the site. On a sunny afternoon the Local Democracy Reporting Service visited the expanding hub for a look around. Wildflower gardens surround impressive new buildings.
There is the ICR’s £75million Centre for Cancer Drug Discovery which opened in 2020 and is now bustling with more than 200 drug discovery scientists and evolution experts. While the Oaks Cancer Centre, opened in June 2023 by the Prince of Wales, is a research and treatment facility that will help accelerate the development of new treatments.
Dr Sandra Hanks is the UK Laboratory Director for Curesponse based at the Innovation Gateway (Image: Facundo Arrizabalaga)
In an unassuming building on the edge of the current site is the Innovation Gateway, where a range of companies are working away on ground breaking advances in the cancer field. It was opened in early 2022 and is a partnership between ICR and Sutton Council.
Curesponse moved in in September 2022 and is the only business of its type in the UK. The Israeli company was set up in 2018 and Dr Sandra Hanks heads up the UK operation where she works with two lab technicians Naoise Costelloe and Cindy Harricharan.
Curesponse takes a patient’s tumour biopsy and keeps it alive for up to seven days. It slices the tissue into sections and treats each part with different drugs. It can then see how the patient’s tumour reacts to each drug and which is the most effective.
Dr Hanks had previously worked in clinical genomics, the study of genes, at both the Royal Marsden and the Institute for Cancer and said the labs in Sutton were a good fit for the growing company.
She said: “The thing about our tests is we can keep the tumour viable so it really does mimic what it going on inside a patient’s body when we do the tests. This can really benefit patient care and assist a patients oncologist in determining the best treatment. Because this is an oncology community, it made absolute sense to come to the London Cancer Hub.”
Emily Curtis and Chris Cottrell founded The Exercise Clinic and want to help thousands of cancer patients (Image: Facundo Arrizabalaga)
Down the hall, a small office is home to the Exercise Clinic, which wants to transform the life of people living with cancer, especially prostate cancer. Here we meet co-founders Emily Curtis and Chris Cottrell who have worked with hundreds of prostate cancer patients at the Royal Marsden since 2020. Most are on hormone therapy which stops testosterone and the clinic has found targeted exercises can mitigate the the effects of this treatment.
Chris was diagnosed with aggressive prostate cancer himself 12 years ago and given just a few years to live. He was referred to an exercise programme in 2013 by an oncologist who he said was “ahead of his time” which is how he met Emily.
He said: “I was give a relatively short time to live but I am now living with advanced prostate cancer and have many years to go. When you get diagnosed it is scary because you don’t really know what lies ahead. You don’t know much about the disease and you don’t want to help, you have no idea what is safe to do.”
Chris participates in every group session the Exercise Clinic runs. He still takes powerful hormone therapies which block testosterone which can lead to a loss of muscle mass, bone thinning, fatigue and a loss of libido. Exercise can combat these effects in patients and the business is committed to research on the benefits for patents.
Emily said: “We do one-to-one sessions and six group sessions each week and collect information through the project. The big aim is to help a lot of people with a safe and long-term exercise regime that fits with them.”
The Oaks Cancer Centre is one of the newest building at the London Cancer Hub (Image: Facundo Arrizabalaga)
Chris wants thousands more patients to experience the benefits he has seen from the programme. He added: “When I had my treatment originally it was it was the toughest. I have now been on the same treatment for six years. Exercise has been life changing for me, it allows me to live a normal life.
“We are working with hundreds of patients and are working with an idea that will allow us to work with thousands of patients, very few people are doing what we are doing.”
There are plans to expand the London Cancer Hub further. Earlier this year, Sutton Council approved plans to demolish a series of Victorian buildings it owns on the edge of the site which had been a children’s hospital in the past. The council is now looking for an investor to build new facilities on the site and hopes a partner will be found by the end of the year.
Naoise Costelloe of Curesponse is one of the researchers working in the Innovation Gateway (Image: Facundo Arrizabalaga)
The authority was also awarded £14 million of government Levelling Up funding to increase services to Belmont Station, a 10 minute walk from the hub. It will be used to double the number of trains per hour from two to four.
Council leader, Councillor Ruth Dombey, said: “I’m so proud that Sutton is already a hub for world-leading cancer care and research. Our partners at the Institute of Cancer Research and the Royal Marsden, and the companies at the Innovation Gateway, do incredible work treating cancer, discovering new drugs and saving lives.
“Our plans to expand the London Cancer Hub will really move things up a gear. We’re now preparing the council-owned land for new state-of-the-art facilities. This includes clearing the derelict old Sutton Hospital buildings, so people will see real change in the coming months.
“Together with our ambitious plans to transform nearby Sutton Town Centre, the London Cancer Hub will put Sutton firmly on the map as a great place to live, work, spend time and do business. I can’t wait to see the vision become a reality.”
The Canadian government says it will donate up to 200,000 vaccine doses to fight the mpox outbreak in Congo and other African countries.
It says the donated doses of Imvamune will come from Canada’s existing supply and will not affect the country’s preparedness for mpox cases in this country.
Minister of Health Mark Holland says the donation “will help to protect those in the most affected regions of Africa and will help prevent further spread of the virus.”
Dr. Madhukar Pai, Canada research chair in epidemiology and global health, says although the donation is welcome, it is a very small portion of the estimated 10 million vaccine doses needed to control the outbreak.
Vaccine donations from wealthier countries have only recently started arriving in Africa, almost a month after the World Health Organization declared the mpox outbreak a public health emergency of international concern.
A few days after the declaration in August, Global Affairs Canada announced a contribution of $1 million for mpox surveillance, diagnostic tools, research and community awareness in Africa.
On Thursday, the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention said mpox is still on the rise and that testing rates are “insufficient” across the continent.
Jason Kindrachuk, Canada research chair in emerging viruses at the University of Manitoba, said donating vaccines, in addition to supporting surveillance and diagnostic tests, is “massively important.”
But Kindrachuk, who has worked on the ground in Congo during the epidemic, also said that the international response to the mpox outbreak is “better late than never (but) better never late.”
“It would have been fantastic for us globally to not be in this position by having provided doses a much, much longer time prior than when we are,” he said, noting that the outbreak of clade I mpox in Congo started in early 2023.
Clade II mpox, endemic in regions of West Africa, came to the world’s attention even earlier — in 2022 — as that strain of virus spread to other countries, including Canada.
Two doses are recommended for mpox vaccination, so the donation may only benefit 100,000 people, Pai said.
Pai questioned whether Canada is contributing enough, as the federal government hasn’t said what percentage of its mpox vaccine stockpile it is donating.
“Small donations are simply not going to help end this crisis. We need to show greater solidarity and support,” he said in an email.
“That is the biggest lesson from the COVID-19 pandemic — our collective safety is tied with that of other nations.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 13, 2024.
Canadian Press health coverage receives support through a partnership with the Canadian Medical Association. CP is solely responsible for this content.
HALIFAX – The Nova Scotia government says it could be months before it reveals how many people are on the wait-list for a family doctor.
The head of the province’s health authority told reporters Wednesday that the government won’t release updated data until the 160,000 people who were on the wait-list in June are contacted to verify whether they still need primary care.
Karen Oldfield said Nova Scotia Health is working on validating the primary care wait-list data before posting new numbers, and that work may take a matter of months. The most recent public wait-list figures are from June 1, when 160,234 people, or about 16 per cent of the population, were on it.
“It’s going to take time to make 160,000 calls,” Oldfield said. “We are not talking weeks, we are talking months.”
The interim CEO and president of Nova Scotia Health said people on the list are being asked where they live, whether they still need a family doctor, and to give an update on their health.
A spokesperson with the province’s Health Department says the government and its health authority are “working hard” to turn the wait-list registry into a useful tool, adding that the data will be shared once it is validated.
Nova Scotia’s NDP are calling on Premier Tim Houston to immediately release statistics on how many people are looking for a family doctor. On Tuesday, the NDP introduced a bill that would require the health minister to make the number public every month.
“It is unacceptable for the list to be more than three months out of date,” NDP Leader Claudia Chender said Tuesday.
Chender said releasing this data regularly is vital so Nova Scotians can track the government’s progress on its main 2021 campaign promise: fixing health care.
The number of people in need of a family doctor has more than doubled between the 2021 summer election campaign and June 2024. Since September 2021 about 300 doctors have been added to the provincial health system, the Health Department said.
“We’ll know if Tim Houston is keeping his 2021 election promise to fix health care when Nova Scotians are attached to primary care,” Chender said.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 11, 2024.
ST. JOHN’S, N.L. – Newfoundland and Labrador‘s chief medical officer is monitoring the rise of whooping cough infections across the province as cases of the highly contagious disease continue to grow across Canada.
Dr. Janice Fitzgerald says that so far this year, the province has recorded 230 confirmed cases of the vaccine-preventable respiratory tract infection, also known as pertussis.
Late last month, Quebec reported more than 11,000 cases during the same time period, while Ontario counted 470 cases, well above the five-year average of 98. In Quebec, the majority of patients are between the ages of 10 and 14.
Meanwhile, New Brunswick has declared a whooping cough outbreak across the province. A total of 141 cases were reported by last month, exceeding the five-year average of 34.
The disease can lead to severe complications among vulnerable populations including infants, who are at the highest risk of suffering from complications like pneumonia and seizures. Symptoms may start with a runny nose, mild fever and cough, then progress to severe coughing accompanied by a distinctive “whooping” sound during inhalation.
“The public, especially pregnant people and those in close contact with infants, are encouraged to be aware of symptoms related to pertussis and to ensure vaccinations are up to date,” Newfoundland and Labrador’s Health Department said in a statement.
Whooping cough can be treated with antibiotics, but vaccination is the most effective way to control the spread of the disease. As a result, the province has expanded immunization efforts this school year. While booster doses are already offered in Grade 9, the vaccine is now being offered to Grade 8 students as well.
Public health officials say whooping cough is a cyclical disease that increases every two to five or six years.
Meanwhile, New Brunswick’s acting chief medical officer of health expects the current case count to get worse before tapering off.
A rise in whooping cough cases has also been reported in the United States and elsewhere. The Pan American Health Organization issued an alert in July encouraging countries to ramp up their surveillance and vaccination coverage.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 10, 2024.
