Abstract

The Cancer Immunotherapy Consortium (CIC) was founded in 2002 as an international association of pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies and academic institutions with a common interest in immunotherapy research and development with the ultimate goal of making cancer immunotherapies part of the standard-of-care in oncology. The CIC focuses on the facilitation of programs and advocacy that aim to achieve issue resolution, translate new science into progress for the field, and engage in stakeholder networking by transitioning into a “think tank” through which the cancer immunotherapy stakeholders from academia, industry, regulatory bodies, and patients, convene and tackle, on an annual basis, one topic of importance to the development of immunotherapies. The effort consists of workshops, working group sessions, and other projects as appropriate, culminating in a white paper and a public presentation and discussion of the group’s results and recommendations at a satellite meeting appended to the Cancer Research Institutes’ (CRI) annual international cancer immunotherapy symposium. Outcomes of the process will be available to all stakeholders in the field. The scientific content of the annual CIC meeting will be merged with the CRI meeting into one focused event.