8 MAY 2025recision cancer medicine is a treatment approach that targets molecular alterations identified in the patient's tumor. Access to adequate molecular diagnostics and cancer drugs is therefore essential for the implementation of precision cancer medicine. However, today there is inequality in access to precision cancer medicine between and within EU countries. This particularly affects cancer patients with the poorest prognosis who have exhausted all lines of standard-of-care treatment, those with tumors carrying rare mutations, and patients with carcinoma of unknown primary.To address these challenges, EU4Health and Cancer Mission (see Box 1) have funded the projects PCM4EU and PRIME-ROSE . PCM4EU is a consortium of 17 partners from 15 countries that focuses on the deployment of novel precision cancer medicine diagnostic tools, whereas PRIME-ROSE is treatment-oriented and consists of 24 partners, from altogether 18 European countries focusing on accelerating precision medicine implementation. The consortiums are coordinated by Professor Hans Gelderblom at the Leiden University Medical Center and Professor Kjetil Tasken at Oslo University Hospital, respectively. Together, this EU-wide precision cancer medicine deployment addresses key scientific questions, aiming to improve access to new and effective cancer treatments. PCM4EU and PRIME-ROSE build on a family of clinician-initiated precision cancer medicine clinical trials called DRUP-like clinical trials, which have been particularly successful (see Figure 1). Most of the trials have been running for more than two years and have access to a portfolio of cancer drugs with 10-30 drugs and a proven record of patient inclusion. The trials share the pragmatic clinical trial design of the original Dutch DRUP trial that opened already in 2016, with broad inclusion criteria and a limited set of endpoints. The DRUP-like clinical trials offer new treatment alternatives for patients with advanced cancer COMBINING EXPERTISE ACROSS BORDERS TO IMPLEMENT EQUITABLE AND SUSTAINABLE PRECISION CANCER Figure 1: Overview of DRUP-like clinical trials in Europe. POP and PROGRESS to start, MOSTplus being continued with megaMOST and MEGALiT to be replaced by FOCUSE.By Kjetil Tasken, Head and Director of Institute of Cancer Research, Oslo University HospitalBox 1EU4Health is the largest health program in EU and invests in projects to improve health in the European Union, and connects to the Europe Beating Cancer plan. Cancer Mission: The EU Mission on Cancer includes several actions launched under the EU mission on cancer, which includes the adoption of Horizon Europe work programs to implement the Mission's actions. PIN MY OPINION
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