Call PIPELINE-2026

Background

Treatment options remain inadequate for many types of cancer, underscoring the urgent need for new and innovative cancer drugs that address unmet medical needs and improve patient outcomes.    

Rapid advancements in academic research, particularly in understanding molecular pathways and the functioning of biological systems, provide the foundation for developing new drugs—defined here as originator medicinal products. Typically, the transition from academic innovation, to investigational medicinal product, to market-ready medicinal product is driven by industry. However, not all academic innovations are pursued by industry for clinical development. Among many reasons, such as uncertainties and suboptimal results, market- or ecosystem failure can also undermine development. When new drugs are not, or not yet, commercially viable or interesting, academics are challenged to take on development themselves. Unfortunately, the pathway for drug development by academics remains underdeveloped and is full with bottlenecks. Failures in the ecosystem for academic drug development include social and operational reasons for early termination of drug development, such as insufficient collaboration and a lack of resources.    

When market- or ecosystem failure arises for new academic innovations, academic efforts are needed to complete development trajectories and reach patients in need. Therefore, the Dutch Cancer Society (KWF) opens the call ‘PIPELINE’ to accelerate the development of academic innovations into new drugs.

Aim

The PIPELINE call focuses on advancing the clinical development of new drugs derived from academic research, with the potential to significantly improve treatment outcomes for cancer patients with unmet medical needs. Any drug that is regulated as a medicinal product within the European Union is eligible for PIPELINE.

Ambition

KWF sees an important role for academia in the development of new drugs from academic research, when development by industry is not, or not yet, viable. We aim to alleviate bottlenecks that academics face in drug development by providing financial support for clinical trials that can be conducted in collaboration with a wide range of partners, with opportunity for regulatory and business development support. PIPELINE recurs every year.

KWF collaborates with the Center for Drug Development (CDD) in the United Kingdom, a charity-funded drug development facility that is part of Cancer Research UK (CRUK). This collaboration enables early clinical development of new medicinal products for academics that do not desire to- or cannot initiate trials themselves, or for academics that would benefit from the expertise of CDD in phase I/IIa trials. The PIPELINE call serves as a sourcing mechanism for the CDD-KWF programme. More information on collaboration with the CDD is provided in the Specific Guidelines (for download below). 

We envision proposals on clinical trials that are supported by interdisciplinary teams (researchers, pharmacists, healthcare professionals), possibly in collaboration with centres in Europe, industry and/or service providers. Academics can aim to reach clinical practice with their innovations themselves. Other innovations could be de-risked for transfer to industry through the generation of clinical data. Public-private partnerships are another route for product development in this call. We stimulate the involvement of micro (academic derived) enterprises. Under specific conditions funding for projected related cost incurred by micro enterprises may be granted. More information is provided in the Specific Guidelines (for download below).

Requirements

Please check the Specific Guidelines (for download below) for more detailed requirements and scope.

Project and applicants

• Research type: research project or consortia. 
• Research phase: clinical trials ranging from phase I to III. Confirmatory and/or pivotal trials may be considered if they fit within the indicative budget. Development of GMP manufacturing is allowed under specific rules. 
• Trial design: interventional, prospective, using the best-fitting trial design.
• Lead institute: medical centre or research institute that must be located in the Netherlands.
• Public participating parties: medical centre or research institute that must be located in Europe that carries part of the responsibility for the project. Medical centres can be involved as an external inclusion centre only, but in this role they are not considered a participating party. 
• Private participating parties: Public/Private collaborations are possible. For-profit private partners can participate only if they contribute (in-cash and/or in-kind, see Specific Guidelines).
• Patient participation: it is required to actively involve patients in the set up and execution of the trial.

Product

• Intervention: new investigational medicinal product (e.g. new chemical/biological entity, originator products).
• Product type: all types of experimental drugs that fall within the legal EU definition of ‘medicinal product’ ^[1] (e.g. chemical substances such as chemotherapy, biological substances such as monoclonal antibodies, advanced therapy medicinal products such as T cell therapy).
• A (preliminary) Target Product Profile is mandatory.
• Indication: all cancer types, including rare- and paediatric cancers. 
• Scientific rationale: (pre)clinical research supports expected safety and efficacy outcomes.
• Added clinical value: product development addressing unmet medical needs, with added value for the patient with respect to clinical safety and/or efficacy compared to current standard treatment.
• Development plan and go-to-market/implementation strategy: clear development trajectory with supporting regulatory strategy and business development plan to reach the patient in clinical practice, including risk assessment.
• Analysis of competitive advantage and IP position: comparison to similar approaches on the market or in development, rights to further develop and freedom to operate. 
• Clear and feasible manufacturing strategy: GMP manufacturing plan including Quality Control.

Out of scope

• Repurposing of registered medicinal products for new indications.
• Combination therapy of registered medicinal products only.
• Preclinical research cannot be part of the project.
• Private parties as a main applicant, or industry sponsored trials.
• (Early) diagnosis of (recurrent) disease and/or monitoring during therapeutic interventions and/or patient stratification for therapeutic interventions, without interventional and drug development set-up (e.g., observational research). 
• Investigational products with no or limited freedom to operate.
   

Submission procedure

The call has a pre- and full-proposal submission procedure. Both the pre- and full- proposal must be written in English and submitted exclusively by the main applicant through the electronic submission system KWF Grant Management System (GMS).

The Scientific Evaluation Committee will select pre-proposals based on scientific excellence, developmental potential and patient impact potential. Selected applicants are invited to submit a full-proposal. Please note that full-proposals can be submitted by invitation only. GMS opens for pre-proposals on April 29, 2025.

More information on the submission procedure is available in the Specific Guidelines (for download below).

Timeline

Indicative budget

The budget indication per proposal is 1 - 5 million euro.

More information

Specific Guidelines for the PIPELINE-2026 call (for download below) include more information on the requirements, scope, pre-proposal selection procedure, the submission procedure for the pre- and full-proposal, evaluation criteria and collaboration with the CDD. General guidelines for the submission, instructions for GMS, review procedures, and budget format can be found in the Guidelines 2025.

Granted KWF projects will be funded under the current Funding Terms and Conditions 2025. Additional project specific conditions may be applied.

Projects that are granted within the CDD-KWF programme will be funded under separate terms and conditions. For each granted project, a project specific Project Agreement will entail all agreed terms and conditions between applicants and the CDD. In this process, there is ample opportunity for discussion between applicants and the CDD, on both the execution of the trial and the future development trajectory. KWF will oversee adherence to KWF goals and standards in projects funded within the CDD-KWF programme, including adherence to socially responsible terms.