Joint adolescent–adult early phase clinical trials to improve access to new drugs for adolescents with cancer: proposals from the multi-stakeholder platform—ACCELERATE

The impressive progress recently observed in adult cancers through the introduction of new drugs has not yet been translated to adolescents 12–17years of age [defined according to the International Conference on Harmonization (ICH) E11]. The current drug development landscape separates adult and paediatric drug development (Table 1). Adolescents are grouped with children, leading to a mismatch with a lack of trials for adolescents with relapsed cancer and delayed access to new, effective drugs already available for adults.