The GRASSHOPPER network: Jumping forward from preclinical development of pediatric cancer drugs to clinical implementation

Every year 16.000 children in Europe are diagnosed with cancer, and 2000 children (approximately 70 school classes) die from this illness.

New therapeutic solutions are advancing rapidly however the optimization and implementation into clinical trials accessible for these children is lacking behind.

New therapeutic interventions often don’t make it through the valley of death between preclinical development and clinical implementation. In addition, the accessibility between countries of new treatments varies largely.

Therefore, the GRASSHOPPER consortium aims to create a multidisciplinary network of stakeholders in pediatric cancer development to boost implementation of new therapeutic interventions for children with cancer across Europe and beyond.

GRASSHOPPER consists of 10 beneficiaries and 7 associated partners located in 16 countries: 6 academic European Comprehensive Childhood Cancer Centers (CCCC’s) and 3 non-European CCCC’s, 5 non-academic national leading Childhood Cancer Centers, 2 leading pharmaceutical companies and 1 non-for-profit drug developer.

The consortium has 4 objectives: identification and preclinical validation of new immune interventions (1) and new molecular interventions (2), stimulating repurposing of available therapeutic interventions (3) and improving clinical validation of high potential therapeutic interventions for pediatric cancer (4).

These objectives will be achieved by intersectoral secondments between the various beneficiaries and partners.

The consortium expects that these objectives will lead to a strong international and multidisciplinary network, exchange of knowledge and expertise between sectors and countries and lead to highly skilled researchers, trained in pediatric and transferable skills, and with a large network for future career perspectives, that will jump over the valley of death and accelerate new treatments.