On Thursday 1st February, Pat McFadden MP attended the Cancer Research UK #unityday in the Houses of Parliament.

Cancer Research UK is the world’s largest independent cancer charity dedicated to saving lives through research. Their ambition is to see 3 in 4 people with cancer surviving the disease by 2034, research is at the heart of their plan to reach this ambition and they need to work together with partners across the EU and globally to achieve this.

Cancer Research UK’s top priorities for the new UK/EU relationship are:

1) People -; continuing to work with and attract global scientific talent and stakeholders from across the EU to benefit patients.

2) Regulation -; aligned legislation for research enables life-saving EU-wide collaborations to take place in areas from clinical trials to data sharing. The EU Clinical Trials Regulation is particularly important for research into rare cancers and children’s cancers, where patient numbers are low.

3) Science Investment -; the UK benefits from EU funding programmes through the money they provide and vital collaborations they support. In 2015, the UK received £40 million funding for cancer research from the EU and nearly 50% of all UK cancer research involves international collaboration.

In the NHS Wolverhampton CCG, there are around 1,300 cancer cases per year, with around 680 cancer deaths. Cancer Research UK say that 4 in 10 cancer cases could be prevented and point to smoking and obesity as the single biggest preventable causes of cancer in the UK.

For more information on Cancer Research UK and their Brexit priorities, please contact their EU Public Affairs team at publicaffairs@cancer.org.uk

Pat McFadden MP said:

“Cancer Research UK has launched a very important campaign to ensure that the UK can continue to take part in pan European clinical trials after Brexit. The way cancer research is developing means that we have become better at identifying specific types of cancers, often with relatively small groups of sufferers in each country. That means that clinical trials often take place across a number of countries so that enough patients with the same type of cancer can be included. This kind of research is very much a collaborative effort. Cancer Research UK has encouraged MPs to write to the Brexit Secretary David Davis asking the Government to prioritise the UK’s continued ability to take part in these trials on the same basis as we do now. I am glad to support this campaign and have written to the Secretary of State urging him to ensure this work can continue.”