New Leadership Presents “Good Opportunity” to Expand Community-Based Trials

Commentary
Video

START is the largest early phase oncology network in the community-based setting, according to Geraldine O’Sullivan Coyne, MD, MRCPI, PhD.

In a conversation with CancerNetwork®, Geraldine O’Sullivan Coyne, MD, MRCPI, PhD, spoke about her new appointment as the principal investigator and director of Clinical Research at the Northwell Health unit of the Southern Texas Accelerated Research Therapeutics (START) Center for Cancer Research. Following a strategic partnership formed between Northwell Health and START in May 2024, Coyne 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, the new position has offered her a “moment of delight” as well as an opportunity to expand clinical trial enrollment among patients with cancer who reside in community settings. Additionally, she highlighted the history behind START’s formation, which she described as the largest early phase oncology network in the community setting.

Transcript:

It has truly been a moment of delight for me, and one that has been a proud moment, personally. It is, however, incredibly humbling to have been offered this opportunity, and one that I am looking forward to putting in all of my efforts into making this, hopefully, a good opportunity for patients to be able to be considered for trials within the community [while] partnering, in this sense, with Northwell Health here at their Long Island campus.

START stands for Southern Texas Accelerated Research Therapeutics, and it was founded in 2007 by a group of oncologists in the locality that were interested in [bringing] these types of trials into their community. START, since then, has had an increasingly well recognized record both in the US as well as in Europe. It is now the largest early phase oncology network in the community, globally. This is by a variety of metrics, including the number of physicians that are dedicated start, principal investigators—or PIs—as well as the extent and the locality of the START networks to date.

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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