Expanding Cancer Trial Opportunities Into the “Heart” of the Community

Commentary
Video

A new START center in New York may give patients with advanced malignancies an opportunity to access novel therapies in the community setting.

Introducing opportunities to enroll on clinical trials among patients with cancer who reside in community-based environments represents the aim of a collaboration between Northwell Health and Southern Texas Accelerated Research Therapeutics (START), according to Geraldine O’Sullivan Coyne, MD, MRCPI, PhD.

Coyne spoke with CancerNetwork® about her new position as the principal investigator and director of Clinical Research at the Northwell Health unit of the START Center for Cancer Research. She discussed how the new unit she will oversee at the R.J. Zuckerberg Cancer Center in New Hyde Park may provide access to early phase clinical trials and personalized medicine to patients with cancer in a community setting.

According to Coyne, many patients who enroll on clinical trials located in large academic centers may have to travel away from their social networks of support as they undergo treatment. As part of this collaboration between Northwell Health and START, Coyne stated that the new unit will give patients with advanced malignancies in the community setting an opportunity to access novel therapies.

Transcript:

[For patients], when the decision comes up to consider a clinical trial, on many occasions, large academic centers will offer a good option in the trial setting. But for many patients, this implies that they must travel or leave their social networks of support and care within the area that they live. One of the things that we are hoping as a group to be able to bring is the option of additional trials, potentially at various stages in a patient’s treatment paradigm, within the community setting. Northwell Health serves an enormous and diverse population in New York, and having the privilege to be able to bring trial opportunities into the community—into the heart of the community—is what we are aiming to do.

We do believe that this will give patients the opportunity to access novel and powerful therapies that are now increasingly part of a personalized treatment paradigm for patients with advanced malignancies.

Reference

Olt B. Northwell names Geraldine O’Sullivan Coyne, MD, PhD, to lead clinical trials at new START center. News release. Northwell Health. July 22, 2025. Accessed August 7, 2025. https://tinyurl.com/bdcua8ck

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