Pictured (left to right): Dr. Faiyaz Notta, Dr. Robert Kridel, and Dr. John Kuruvilla

In 2021, Agnico Eagle pledged $10 million to support the Grand Challenges competition at the Princess Margaret Cancer Centre (PM), bringing the company’s cumulative contributions to over $25 million, making it one of the largest corporate charitable investments in Canadian history.

Now in its fourth year, the Agnico Eagle Grand Challenges support bold, innovative, and high-impact projects at PM, which aim to improve patient outcomes by 1) detecting cancer earlier and 2) moving beyond chemotherapy with exciting new treatments. The Grand Challenges enable vital research at a critical time with cancer already being the leading cause of death in Canada and the number of new cancer cases expected to rise over 70% by 2050, according to the World Health Organization. 

Early Detection: New Hope for Pancreatic Cancer Patients

The most recent winner of the Agnico Eagle Early Detection Grand Challenge is Dr. Faiyaz Notta, a Scientist at PM who leads pioneering research in pancreatic cancer. Dr. Notta’s lab focuses on unravelling the complexities of pancreatic cancer to improve outcomes for patients suffering from this devastating disease.

 “I’m honoured to be the recipient of the 2024 Agnico Eagle Early Detection Grand Challenge. This award will enable us to maximize the information we gather from each patient sample and allow us to expand our analysis to ultimately provide a better tool for early detection of pancreatic cancer.” - Dr. Faiyaz Notta

Pancreatic cancer remains one of the leading causes of cancer deaths in Canada. In 2022, the Canadian Cancer Society estimated that nearly 7,000 Canadians were diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. Unlike many other cancer types, the five-year survival rate for pancreatic cancer has also only marginally improved over the past decade, mostly due to its aggressive nature and lack of early symptoms.

Detecting the tumour early, when it is small and has not spread, would significantly increase the five-year survival rate, and improve patient outcomes, emphasizing the importance of screening and early detection. Unfortunately, current biomarkers and imaging technologies are not accurate enough to detect small, early tumours. Additionally, liquid biopsies, an emerging, non-invasive way of detecting tumour biomarkers in the blood, have mostly focused on circulating tumour DNA (ctDNA), which is released predominantly from dying cells. This makes it challenging to detect slow-growing or early-stage tumours that are characterized by low cell turnover.

To increase the sensitivity of early cancer detection through liquid biopsies, Dr. Notta is focused on plasma cell-free RNA (plRNA), which contrary to ctDNA, is released from living cells and has a tumour-specific signature that can be detected even for tumours with a low cell turnover. Dr. Notta’s team recently established the feasibility of using plRNA for cancer detection in a preliminary study involving 38 patients with pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDA), the most common type of pancreatic cancer.

The team found that they could differentiate clearly between patients and healthy individuals based on their plRNA signature, which also correlated with tumour size and poor patient outcomes. Importantly, the plRNA signature outperformed currently used biomarkers as well as ctDNA.

Enabled through the Agnico Eagle Early Detection Grand Challenge, the team is now expanding their study to include samples from patients on clinical trials, covering all clinical stages of PDA, as well as individuals at high risk of developing pancreatic cancer. Supporting them is a multidisciplinary team of scientists, clinicians, and pancreatic cancer clinical trial experts with 10 years of experience.

This first-of-its-kind project holds the potential to deliver a diagnostic tool that enhances the specificity and sensitivity of current diagnostic methods and aims to revolutionize early pancreatic cancer detection, offering hope to patients with this devastating disease.

Beyond Chemotherapy: High-Definition Therapeutics

Clinician Scientist Dr. Robert Kridel, and Dr. John Kuruvila, Medical Director of the High-Definition Program and site lead for Lymphoma and Myeloma and their team are the winners of the most recent Agnico Eagle High-Definition Therapeutics Grand Challenge. Their multi-centre clinical study aims to improve outcomes for patients with diffuse large B cell lymphoma (DLBCL).

DLBCL is the most common non-Hodgkin lymphoma affecting over 20,000 Canadians and is standardly treated with a combination of chemotherapy and immunotherapy drugs known as R-CHOP. While this is effective for many patients, improving the overall cure rate with this primary treatment alone has proven to be challenging. Additionally, new treatment approaches are needed for patients whose disease has recurred or for whom first-line therapies did not work.

In the new study, the team is looking to introduce a bispecific T cell engager (BiTE) called glofitamab into the primary treatment plan for patients who are at high risk of R-CHOP not working. BiTEs are a new class of immunotherapy agents that help the body’s natural immune cells identify and kill lymphoma cells. To determine whether a patient has certain blood-based biomarkers that are associated with a lack of response to R-CHOP, the team will use liquid biopsies.

This approach will allow them to monitor patient responses in real-time and adjust their treatment plan accordingly when needed, like intensifying the therapy by adding glofitamab for patients at high risk of R-CHOP not working. It will also allow the team to identify patients for whom reducing R-CHOP treatment cycles would maintain their response, decreasing the overall toxicity of the therapy.

Preparatory work for the clinical study is completed and the legal contracts have been finalized with the BiTE manufacturers. The study protocol, which lays out in detail how the trial will operate, has also been approved by Health Canada, a big step forward for the study. The team anticipates that they can start enrolling patients in the study in the first quarter of 2024.

Cancer Clinical Research Unit

In addition to providing support for the Grand Challenges Program, Agnico Eagle’s gift also supports The Princess Margaret’s Cancer Clinical Research Unit (CCRU), one of the largest clinical research centres dedicated to improving the treatment of cancer. This CCRU support is vital to ensuring that discoveries made at PM can be converted into patient care as quickly as possible through clinical trials. Clinical trials are testing new treatments or treatment strategies to improve patient care and quality of life. If successful, these treatments can become the standard of care in the future, ensuring that cancer patients will continuously have access to the best possible care.

At The Princess Margaret, close to 23% of patients participate in clinical trials, surpassing the national averages in Canada, the US and the UK. Such a high degree of participation allows breakthroughs globally by developing, evaluating, and implementing new treatment methods backed by the highest-quality research. In 2023, the CCRU enrolled just over 2,700 patients in clinical trials. Currently, there are 535 clinical trials recruiting patients, 182 of which opened last year, making the CCRU Canada’s largest and one of the world’s top-rated cancer clinical trials programs.

Learn More About Our Past Grand Challenge Winners

Turning Hope Into Reality

Agnico Eagle’s Funding Poised to Change World of Cancer Diagnosis, Treatment & Therapy

Revolutionizing Cancer Research and Care at Princess Margaret: The Enduring Impact of Agnico Eagle’s Historical Donation