Varsity to set up Clinical trials on Cancer Drugs

On Monday, 28^th November 2022 the University of Nairobi through the University of Nairobi Institute of Tropical and Infectious Diseases (UNITID) and Roche entered into a collaborative agreement through signing of an MoU.

While elaborating more on this collaboration, the Director UNITID, Prof, Julius Oyugi announced that Roche has identified UNITID as a suitable partner to work with on clinical trials on cancer drug starting January 2023.

During the signing Ceremony, Frank Loeffler , the General Manager, East Africa of Roche emphasized on the importance of investing in research citing that research is generational and it is the backbone of Public Health. “We do not research today for tomorrow but for generations to come. I want to urge the Kenyan government to invest more in research and development. He noted that Roche spends 14Bn USD on Research and Development annually while they spend 6 Bn on manufacturing.”

On his part, the Vice Chancellor of UoN, Prof. Stephen Kiama applauded the move of partnership and focused research on cancer citing that, ‘Cancer has been a menace the world over and we hear a lot of issues such as diet that have been the cause of cancer. If we can just arrest this cancer through research that can be such a relief.”

Dr. Ochieng’, The Programme Coordinator of the Oncology Clinical trials noted that this is the first training programme to train oncologists in Kenya. Over the years, Oncologists have been training outside the country. It is our hope that we train oncologists who can make a difference and who can mentor other oncologists.

Dr. Kahumburu, a resident Oncologist at the Oncology Clinical trials appreciated the move by the two institutions noting that, ‘as students they have immensely benefited from the programme and had a chance to work with Mayo Clinic, Harvard and Pennsylvania throughout the research.”