Oncology

The Free University  Medical Centre (VUmc) through its Cancer Centre Amsterdam (CCA), the Netherlands Cancer Institute (NKI), and the Academic Medical Centre (AMC), all have impressive track records in fundamental, translational and clinical research, and are equipped with all the necessary cutting-edge technology . Today’s clinical development strategies for cancer are geared towards designing patient-tailored therapies, and it is crucial that fundamental research occurs in a translational research setting. Amsterdam’s oncology programmes provide just that, and have built up many partnerships with industry in key areas of pre-clinical and clinical development.

The Amsterdam region hosts a broad spectrum of companies involved in cancer research:

• Agendia: Gene expression analysis-based cancer diagnostics
• AIMM Therapeutics: Development of vaccines of fully human nature; Technology to isolate human mAbs from humans having resolved a pathogenic challenge
• DC Prime: DCPrime BV focuses on developing a sustainable dendritic cell (DC) platform and DC targeting technologies. These will be applied to treat cancer and autoimmunity
• Kiadis Pharma: Kiadis Pharma focuses on the development and commercialization of advanced treatments for end-stage blood cancer patients
• Kreatech Biotechnology BV:  The partner of choice in cancer diagnostics
• MRC Holland BV: Development / production of simple to use DNA diagnostic kits based on the proprietary MLPA technique
• SMS Oncology: SMS-Oncology conducts early clinical development projects for pharma and biotech companies in Europe. SMS-ONCOLOGY has experience in many tumour types

Oncology research programmes in Amsterdam centres cover a broad range of topics, from designing novel early diagnostics procedures to target identification, from tumour cell biology to angiogenesis, and from gene therapy and immunotherapy to advanced radiotherapy and optimisation of chemotherapy. The cluster is characterised by innovative target identification via shRNA screens, advanced mouse models for cancer and state-of-the-art facilities and expertise to design and execute clinical trials with excellent access to new patients.

Main therapy targets:

• Breast
• Colon
• Head and neck
• Melanoma
• Hematology

Main therapies and tools:

• Early diagnosis (microarrays, proteomics)
• Imaging
• Gene and cell therapies
• Drug formulation
• Pharmacokinetics
• Tumour banks (frozen samples collected over 20 years with patient records)