£6.1 million funding boost to tackle gaps in Prostate cancer treatment and care in the UK

We’re putting in £6.1 million in funding for six new projects in the UK to reduce the numbers of men dying from prostate cancer and improving quality of life for men living with the disease.

Why?

Prostate cancer is the most common cancer in men in the UK. One in eight men will receive a diagnosis in their lifetime. There are around 12,000 prostate cancer deaths in the UK every year.

What we've been working on

Over the last 20 years, we’ve led the way in prostate cancer research, bringing together the best minds from around the world and supporting the development of life-extending therapies and more accurate diagnostic tests.

Through the amazing efforts of our Movember fundraising community, we've been able to invest almost £187.4 million in over 600 biomedical research projects and close to £113.5 million in clinical quality and survivorship projects, globally.

But despite huge advances in treatment and care, prostate cancer is still the second highest cause of cancer-related deaths in men worldwide.

How it feels as a man

Too many men living with prostate cancer have poor physical and mental health – often because of their treatment or a healthcare system that fails to support their needs.

Anne-Cecile Berthier, Country Director, UK & Europe at Movember, said:

“Movember’s goal is to reduce the numbers of men dying from prostate cancer and improving quality of life for those living with the disease.

We've spent a year listening to and consulting with our community of researchers, clinicians, healthcare professionals and those with lived experience of prostate cancer to identify the greatest priorities for research and gaps within treatment and care.

As a result, we’re delighted to announce funding for six prostate cancer projects, aimed at reducing the number of men whose disease becomes incurable, tackling inequalities in healthcare and delivering more consistent and improved personalised care."

The six:

1. Preventing disease progression in prostate cancer programme

Movember will contribute £1 million in funding from the UK towards this ambitious global programme that aims to determine how to prevent the progression of high-risk prostate cancer to advanced incurable disease.

Involving 30 teams from around the world, including 11 from the UK, and managed in collaboration with our partner Prostate Cancer UK, the research teams will look to harness innovative technologies, such as artificial intelligence and machine learning, to try to identify the best ways of using existing or emerging treatments to prevent aggressive prostate cancer from growing, coming back, or spreading quickly.

2. Personalised active surveillance programme

Many prostate cancers have a low risk of spreading and can be safely monitored using an approach called Active Surveillance (AS). However, about 25% of AS patients opt for active treatments, which carry the risk of lifelong side effects, despite their cancer showing no signs that it's spreading.

Movember will contribute £500,000 in funding to Prostate Cancer UK towards the £3million global collaborative Personalised Active Surveillance programme.

29 teams from around the world, including seven from the UK, will work together to develop a personalised and ‘risk-adjusted’ approach that would reduce the burden of unnecessary tests and treatments for those living with lowest-risk prostate cancer. The research teams will also consider potential disparities in access to good quality active surveillance.

3. The TRANSFORM trial

Every year, over 9,000 men across the UK are diagnosed after their cancer has metastasised and spread widely around their body. As a result of their late diagnosis, those men miss any opportunity for curative treatment and have a very significantly reduced life expectancy compared to men whose cancer is diagnosed at an earlier stage. Movember will contribute £1.5million to the TRANSFORM trial, which aims to provide definitive evidence for approaches that could replace the current diagnostic pathway. Designed and overseen by our partner Prostate Cancer UK, this trial has been developed in consultation with the support of key stakeholders including the NHS, the National Institute for Health and Care Research and the UK Government.

4. Health equity grants programme

Men from groups marginalised by poverty, race, ethnicity, or class may not have access to healthcare they need and may face higher illness severity as a result. There are currently unacceptable differences in prostate cancer survival rates and quality of care for some groups of men, based on their race, ethnicity, socio-economic status, and access to care. Movember will contribute £1.2 million towards the Health Equity Grants programme in the UK which will be focused on strengthening the evidence base of promising approaches that address inequalities in prostate cancer care and treatment. We hope to announce the successful proposals mid-2024.

In addition, Movember will contribute a further 500,000 in funding towards a programme run by our partner Prostate Cancer UK that will focus on Black men and men of African and Caribbean descent.

5. The patient-reported outcome measures (PROMS) programme

Movember will contribute £300,000 in funding from the UK for this new programme that will optimise the monitoring and management of prostate cancer patients following their treatment. This programme will seek to improve prostate cancer care through the use of Patient-Reported Outcome Measures (PROMS). It will also look to address inequalities related to geography, race, or socio-economic status. Movember will invite Letters of Intent (LOI) in November 2023.

6. Sexual health initiative

Movember will allocate £1.1 million in funding towards a three-year programme to improve sexual healthcare following a prostate cancer diagnosis. The two-step initiative will be based on implementing recommendations from the Movember-supported: Guidelines for Sexual Health Care for Prostate Cancer Patients: Recommendations of an International Panel that help healthcare teams around the world to assess and manage the sexual side effects of prostate cancer therapies.