Contributing to best care possible through research
The desire to improve cancer treatments and patients’ outcomes drives Craig’s focus on research. Two milestones have shaped his approach to patient care and fuelled his research work.
The first was when he happened to be one of the first doctors in the world to prescribe pembrolizumab (KEYTRUDA), a groundbreaking cancer drug which today is commonly used to treat many types of cancer.
“Being part of the very first clinical trial for Keytruda was such an enormous gift. That’s a once in a lifetime moment because it’s rare that a Phase I trial will have such a huge impact on people’s lives, I was very aware of that special moment, and I still am to this day.”
The second was his collaboration with a patient to develop a novel treatment strategy, leading to multiple clinical trials.
“I treated a person with cancer who had had quite bad side effects to chemotherapy and didn’t really want to go through that again. We agreed a different plan, shorter treatments and longer breaks.
“He suffered less side effects and the chemotherapy worked for much longer than expected.
“He experienced over two years of benefit from a drug that usually works on average for just over two months.
“The results of his treatment made me focus on the idea of adaptive therapy and encouraged me to seek funding for a clinical trial. We’re now on our third funded clinical trial testing the idea of stopping and starting treatment to spread out the benefit and hopefully help people live longer.”
