New Treatment Approach Shows Promise for Aggressive Breast Cancers 

Press release

13 May 2025

A ground-breaking trial, funded with the help of ACT supporters, has led to a significant improvement in survival rates for patients with aggressive, inherited breast cancers. Cambridge researchers have discovered that a new treatment approach, involving chemotherapy followed by a targeted cancer drug before surgery, has resulted in a 100% survival rates for patients who took part in a trial three years post-surgery.

Published today in the journal Nature Communications, this discovery could become the most effective treatment to date for early-stage breast cancer patients with inherited BRCA1 and BRCA2 gene mutations. These types of breast cancers are notoriously difficult to treat, gaining public attention when actress Angelina Jolie, a BRCA1 carrier, underwent a preventative double mastectomy in 2013.

The current standard treatment aims to shrink the tumour using chemotherapy and immunotherapy before removing the tumour through surgery. However, the first three years after surgery are critical, with the highest risk of relapse after death. The Partner trial took a different approach, demonstrating two key innovations: the addition of olaparib and chemotherapy pre-surgery, and the benefits of careful timing of treatments. Olaparib, a targeted cancer drug taken as tablets, is already available on the NHS.

Led by Addenbrooke’s Hospital, part of Cambridge University Hospitals (CUH) NHS Foundation Trust and the University of Cambridge, the trial recruited patients from 23 NHS sites across the UK. Results show that leaving a 48-hour gap between chemotherapy and olaparib leads to better outcomes, possibly because the patient’s bone marrow has time to recover from chemotherapy while leaving the tumour cells susceptible to the targeted drug. Of the 39 patients who received chemotherapy followed by olaparib only one relapsed three years after surgery, and 100% survived. In comparison, the survival rate for the control arm was 88% three years after surgery.

Jackie Van Bochoven, a 59-year-old from South Cambridgeshire, was diagnosed in February 2019 with a small but aggressive tumour. She shared her experience: “When I had the diagnosis, I was completely shocked and numb. I thought about my children, and my mum and sister who were diagnosed with breast cancer. I was pretty worried. Six years on, I’m well and cancer-free. I’m back at work, enjoying life and spending time with my family. When you’ve had cancer, I think you look at life differently and every day is a bonus”.

The findings have the potential to be applied to other cancers caused by faulty copies of the BRCA genes, such as some ovarian, prostate, and pancreatic cancers. It may also have cost-saving benefits for the NHS, as patients currently offered olaparib take the drug post-surgery for 12 months, whereas patients on the trial took the tablets pre-surgery for 12 weeks.

Professor Jean Abraham, Addenbrooke’s consultant and trial lead, expressed excitement about the potential of this new approach: “It is rare to have a 100% survival rate in a study like this and for these aggressive types of cancer. We’re incredibly excited about the potential of this new approach, as its crucial that we find a way to treat and hopefully cure patients who are diagnosed with BRCA1 and BRCA2 related cancers”.

Shelly Thake, CEO of Addenbrooke’s Charitable Trust, which supported the Partner trial with funding from our kind supporters, said: “One of the greatest privileges we have as a charity is supporting transformative, pioneering and radical people. The finest minds in their fields whose research is shaping the future of healthcare, doing things differently so that we can stop people suffering from cancers we should be beating. Jean is one of those individuals, and her work developing personalised breast cancer treatments remains one of the most powerful examples of what ACT – and the wonderful people who donate to ACT – can make possible. This news gives hope to countless women who live with the fear of aggressive, inherited breast cancers. It is also a profound example of what the new Cambridge Cancer Research Hospital that we are currently fundraising for will make possible, and why there is nowhere else other than Cambridge where this hospital would be possible with its critical mass of clinicians, researchers, world-class hospitals and pioneering organisations such as the University and pharmaceutical companies”.

ACT supported Professor Abraham by funding her salary for two years, which enabled her to work on multiple breast cancer projects.

“That kind of support at that stage is a boost in that it gives you the feeling that someone believes in what you are doing. It is always good to get someone else to verify that your ideas are sound, and if people back it with money then that’s a very big statement of support. So, from my perspective, having ACT’s funding to support me was a very visible and real sign of the belief in my abilities and there’s no price you can put on that kind of confidence at that stage in your career.”

“Probably the most undervalued quality in science and medicine is determination and persistence because this wasn’t straight forward. We went to more than one drug company to get a drug; we didn’t always get the funding that we should have got and there have been a lot of hurdles.

We had to get through COVID – there’s been a lot that has happened. Some of the firms that were doing the work of testing went bust. A lot happens when you are trying to deliver a trial, so for anyone who is more junior and is thinking of a career as a clinical trialist or clinical academic, I would say, obviously you have to be smart and have general ideas, but fundamentally you have to be determined, persistent and not let other people’s inability to see what you see stop you. To have that belief in yourself and your team and to take the project forward I think is really important.”

Mark O’Connor, chief scientist in Early Oncology R&D at AstraZeneca, added: “The Partner trial highlights the importance of detecting and treating cancer early, and the value of innovative science in informing clinical trial design. While the findings need to be validated in a larger study, they’re incredibly exciting and have the potential to transform outcomes for patient populations who have unmet clinical needs”.

This collaboration between NHS, academia, and industry, reflects the vision of the Cambridge Cancer Research Hospital, a specialist cancer research hospital due to be built on Europe’s leading life sciences campus, the Cambridge Biomedical Campus. It will bring clinical expertise from Addenbrooke’s Hospital together with world-class scientists from the University of Cambridge, Cancer Research UK Cambridge Centre, and industry partners to create new diagnostics and treatments to detect the earliest signs of cancer and deliver personalised, precision medicine.

Michelle Mitchell, Chief Executive of Cancer Research UK, commented: “One of the best ways that we can beat cancer sooner is by making more effective use of treatments that are already available to us. While this research is still in its infancy, it is an exciting discovery that adding olaparib at a carefully-timed stage of treatment can potentially give patients with this specific type of breast cancer more time with their loved ones. Research like this can help find safer and kinder ways to treat certain types of cancer. Further studies in more patients are needed to confirm whether this new technique is safe and effective enough to be used by the NHS”.

Professor Abraham and the team are now planning the next phase of the research, which will look to replicate the results in a larger study and confirm that the Partner approach offers a less toxic treatment for patients as well as being more cost-effective to the current standard of care. She said:

“All jobs have their moments. The privilege I have is that you are always grounded by your patients because no matter how tough you think you are having it, you know that your patients are having it a great deal tougher. And actually, the thing that should motivate you is not whether you can get an H paper or an H Comms paper (a metric used to measure the productivity and impact of a researcher’s publications), both of which we got, but actually it’s ‘will it make a difference to the people that you see every week in clinic?’ that should be your driver.”

The Partner trial was sponsored by Cambridge University Hospitals (CUH) NHS Foundation Trust and the University of Cambridge, funded by Cancer Research UK and AstraZeneca, and supported by Addenbrooke’s Charitable Trust (ACT), the NIHR Cambridge Biomedical Research Centre, and the Cancer Research UK Cambridge Centre.