Clinical trials numbers in Western NSW and Far West could sky-rocket in coming years

Through the Rural, Regional and Remote Clinical Trial Enabling Program: Improving access to innovative healthcare in RRR NSW and ACT (R3-CTEP), Western NSW LHD will establish a clinical trial support unit to deliver outreach services across its district, as well as the Far West.

Speaking at Orange Hospital on Monday, clinical lead for the western cluster clinical trial support unit, Dr Rob Zielinski, called the $6 million funding a "once in a generational boost."

"This is all diseases, not just cancer," he said.

"The idea of this money is to bring the necessary infrastructure to run clinical trials the Central West. The main crux of the funds is to pay for clinical trial staff, who are the engine room of running a clinical trial.

"The West and the Far West LHDs are a long way behind our metro cousins, so this money is a supercharged injection so we can get people on the ground here and stop our patients having to travel down to Sydney or Canberra to access these really important, life-altering treatments."

The Federal Government funding for the region came from a larger pool of $30 million which was awarded to NSW. The $6 million will last for four years, with the idea for the clinical trials to be self-sufficient in terms of funding after that.

"We need to build a sustainable model," Dr Zielinski said.

"Running clinical trials can be lucrative, so you want to attract business. We want sponsors, pharmaceutical companies to come to us and say 'we've got this great treatment' for whatever disease, 'can we do it in the rural and regional parts of NSW' and the idea is that yes, they can."

Dr Zielinski said the trials would not just focus on cancer - for which Orange Health Service already operates clinical trials. Instead, it will cater to whatever disease they can get patients and clinicians in to work on the trials.

"We want to target the diseases and the problems that are really relevant to the west and far west LHDs," he added.

"They are typically cardiovascular diseases, renal diseases, pregnancy and smoking interventions would be the other ones. We're open for business for any disease and if we find keen investigators who want to participate, that would be huge. We want to direct this to the areas of need in our region."

As it currently stands, there are 12 clinical trials focused on cancer treatments currently ongoing in Orange, with about 70 patients on board.

Dr Zielinski expected the amount of patients undergoing clinical trials in the region to "triple or quadruple" in the coming years as a result of the expanded services.

Before any of that will happen though, staff will need to be hired, something the doctor said could be a struggle.

"I think it's going to be difficult, I'll be honest with you," he said of hiring the required staff to run the clinical trials.

"I'm confident by nature because I work in cancer and I think you have to be optimistic and confident. (But, employment) is our biggest challenge.

"The opportunities will hopefully attract some great people as well. We've got people within our workforce that will hopefully transition into these resources as well. It's going to be tough, but I'm confident still."

Even if staff are recruited in a speedy manner, don't expect the trials to be operating at full capacity this year.

"There will be a period of not too much trial activity in the first 12 months and then in years two, three and four we'll really see an upswing," Dr Zielinski said.

"For me, the big markers of success will be running clinical trials in non-cancer diseases, that is a huge tick. The other huge tick will be running clinical trials in Dubbo, Broken Hill, Bathurst and those surrounding places.

"The critical, core people we'll hopefully start hiring in the next few months and then we'll expand within cancer trials. So Bathurst, Dubbo and Broken Hill are probably our focus, because that's the low-lying fruit as we already have cancer clinical trials here in Orange."

The first trial off the back of this funding is expected to begin in the second half of 2023.

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