About Us

The Pediatric Early Phase-Clinical Trial Network (PEP-CTN) is comprised of 42 premier Children Oncology Group (COG) pediatric sites in the U.S.  Canada and Australia. Twenty-one sites are designated as core sites located within the US and participate in all PEPCTN trials, and 21 non-core member sites in the U.S., Canada and Australia that participate in selected trials.  All PEPCTN sites are selected through a rigorous peer review process. The PEP-CTN builds on the strengths and accomplishments of the COG Phase 1/Pilot Consortium to effectively and efficiently conduct state-of-the-art early phase trials. The PEP-CTN will leverage collaborative interaction with COG disease committees, COG leadership, NCI leadership, and the pharmaceutical industry to prioritize and streamline the development of new, targeted therapies for children with cancer. Innovative trial design and endpoints, genomic biomarkers and other correlative studies will augment the impact of PEP-CTN trials on individual patients and drug development for childhood cancer.

The PEP-CTN successfully leverages the database infrastructure and resources of the parent COG while maintaining its own administrative and operational infrastructure to ensure rapid development, implementation and reporting of specialized and complex early phase clinical trials. The PEP-CTN has expert resources for the conduct of translational biology, pharmacokinetic, and pharmacogenetics studies, and has developed a state-of-the art infrastructure to facilitate image transfer of specialized correlative imaging studies for central review and analyses.