Advocate Aurora receives $10M cancer grant

Advocate Aurora Health announced it has received a $10.17 million grant from the National Cancer Institute, which will allow it to expand its cancer clinical trials to more than 30 clinics in Illinois and Wisconsin, the health care system announced Tuesday.

NCI named the group's Wisconsin-based Aurora Health Care system an NCI Community Oncology Research Program (NCORP) site, building on a five-year funding award Aurora had previously received. Aurora Health will continue its clinical trials for cancer patients across Wisconsin for an additional six years,

As part of Aurora's merger with Downers-Grove based Advocate Health Care last year, the grant will also allow Aurora Health Care to expand its clinical trials to 13 Advocate cancer clinics in Illinois, including Advocate Lutheran General in Park Ridge, Good Shepherd Hospital in Barrington, Sherman Hospital in Elgin, Condell Hospital in Libertyville, and Advocate Medical Group facilities in Libertyville, Crystal Lake, Naperville and Darien.

The sites also include Advocate Children's Hospital in Park Ridge and Oak Lawn, which will enable Aurora NCORP to participate in pediatric clinical trials.

Aurora already has 18 cancer clinics in eastern Wisconsin.

"NCORP is a critical, federally funded program that allows our health system to bring cancer clinical trials to people in their own communities instead of restricting them to major research institutions," said Thomas Saphner, MD, Aurora Health Care co-principal investigator along with Michael Thompson, MD, PhD.

Sigrun Hallmeyer, MD, the Advocate principal investigator for the NCORP grant, added the grant marks the first major joint research initiative for Advocate Aurora Health's research arms,