Fostering Collaboration to Advance Community-Based Cancer Care
Conducting trials safely within a community setting lies at the heart of a successful collaboration between Northwell Health and START.
In a conversation with CancerNetwork®, Geraldine O’Sullivan Coyne, MD, PhD, MRCPI, discussed how a new research unit formed between Northwell Health and the Southern Texas Accelerated Research Therapeutics (START) Center for Cancer Research will facilitate multidisciplinary collaboration to improve outcomes among patients with cancer in a community setting. In July 2025, Coyne was appointed as the principal investigator and director of clinical research at the Northwell Health Unit of the START Center for Cancer Research. There, she will oversee early-phase clinical trials at New York’s first START research site at the R.J. Zuckerberg Cancer Center in New Hyde Park.
According to Coyne, Northwell Health already includes an “impressive” degree of multidisciplinary collaboration within its system, which may allow providers to safely conduct clinical trials in a community setting. She stated that organizing these community-based trials, along with developing novel therapeutic agents, lies at the heart of a successful collaboration between Northwell Health and START.
According to the press release on Coyne’s new appointment, she previously served as a clinical investigator at START Dublin in Ireland. Additionally, she occupied a variety of leadership roles within a 7-year period at the National Cancer Institute, which included operating as a staff clinician in the Development Therapeutics Clinic and Early Clinical Trials Development Program and as the head of the Clinical Sciences Section.
Transcript:
[Northwell Health] has impressive expertise and multidisciplinary care already [established] within their health care system. In partnering with Northwell [Health], given their expertise and their excellence in care, being able to take on trials within the community in a safe manner and further develop the drugs themselves—these novel therapeutics—is [something] that we believe is going to be the heart of a successful collaboration with Northwell Health and [will position us] to be able to better serve the community that Northwell reaches.
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
