The Royal Marsden NHS Foundation Trust
The Royal Marsden NHS Foundation Trust is a world-leading specialist cancer hospital. The Institute of Cancer Research works in close partnership with The Royal Marsden to take the results of our research rapidly into the clinic, with the aim of developing better treatments for cancer patients.
With hospitals in Chelsea and Sutton, and a chemotherapy suite at Kingston Hospital, The Royal Marsden treats 50,000 patients from across the UK and abroad every year. Many of these patients benefit from tailored treatment programmes accomplished through provision of molecular diagnostics – allowing doctors to determine which specific treatments will be of most benefit to a particular patient.
The ICR and The Royal Marsden are internationally renowned for our work together to conduct early- and late-phase clinical trials. Our joint Drug Development Unit, which sees around 300 patients per year, is one of the largest centres for phase I trials in the world and makes an important contribution to the worldwide effort to discover and develop new cancer drugs.
The ICR and The Royal Marsden together are ranked in the top four centres for cancer research and treatment worldwide. In 2006, we were selected as a National Institute for Health and Care Research Biomedical Research Centre specialising in cancer.
Professor Paul Workman is Harrap Professor of Pharmacology and Therapeutics at The Institute of Cancer Research. He has worked in the field of cancer research for more than 50 years and was the ICR’s Chief Executive and President from 2014 to 2021. During his leadership, he oversaw many of our scientific successes – including the development of smarter and kinder forms of radiotherapy. Now, after being diagnosed with prostate cancer himself in 2022, he reflects on his experience as both a leading cancer scientist and now a cancer patient.