The Joint Action on Personalised Cancer Medicine (JA PCM) is designed to build upon and collaborate with a wide range of existing, past, current, and future initiatives to maximise its impact and ensure sustainable outcomes.
The European Commission has launched multiple initiatives in the field of cancer care, it is therefore important to build on these initiatives, to create synergies and avoid duplication. The JA PCM therefore includes several strategies to implement synergies with other EU initiatives in the field of cancer. Detailed synergies with the parallel European project SPARC (Support of Personalised Medicine Approaches in Cancer) a Coordination and Support Action (CSA) have been developed, alongside synergies with other EU initiatives.
By leveraging the strengths and outputs of these initiatives, JA PCM aims to create a cohesive and integrated approach to personalised cancer medicine across Europe.
Key Collaborations and Synergies
SPARC
The Commission has mandated a structured collaboration between the JA PCM and the SPARC project (Support of Personalised Medicine Approaches in Cancer). Both initiatives share the overarching goal of accelerating the adoption, integration, and equitable implementation of personalised cancer medicine (PCM) across Europe. While JA PCM addresses the entire patient pathway from prevention, diagnosis and treatment to follow-up, and provides broad European coverage, policy reach, and system-level
coordination, SPARC focuses on strong patient engagement, stakeholder participation, pilot-driven clinical evidence, and targeted activities in the diagnosis and treatment area, including liquid biopsy, molecular tumour boards and training. A joint synergy strategy was developed built on three pillars:
Integration of patient perspectives
Both JA PCM and SPARC will work to improve how patients access, experience, understand, and are affected by healthcare services that extract and use molecular and genetic features of their cancer. The activities will focus on improving communication and understanding of PCM, shared decision-making, emotional and psychological impact. The work also addresses access, financial burden, trust, and quality of life.
Three thematic Working Groups:
Liquid biopsy & Next Generation Sequencing: Promote Liquid Biopsy and Next Generation Sequencing for diagnostics and recurrence monitoring.
Molecular Tumour Boards: Consolidate Molecular Tumour Boards and implement federated approaches acrossInitiatives.
Education & Training: Share resources and approaches for training, capacity building, and knowledge transfer.
A stakeholder engagement, communication and dissemination strategy
JA PCM and SPARC have established a common strategy for stakeholder management to align best practices of PCM and draft next policies to support the implementation of equitable and fair access to personalised cancer medicine in Europe. A joint communication strategy has also been developed, in order to deliver the same key messages to the target groups.
Read more on the JA PCM x SPARC synergy
Other EU projects:
JA PCM builds on CAN.HEAL and PCM4EU: JA PCM will leverage guidelines, protocols, and best practices developed in these initiatives to enhance its framework and activities.
JA PCM will work in close synergy with a range of ongoing projects to ensure alignment, maximise impact, and avoid duplication of efforts. In addition, JA PCM will connect with broader EU programmes such as Digital Europe and EIT Health to support collaboration and the integration of digital innovations in cancer care.—including:
EUnetCCC – European Network of Comprehensive Cancer Centres
JANE-2 – Joint Action on Networks of Expertise on Cancer 2
eCAN+ – Joint Action on Enhancing the Digital Capabilities of Cancer Centres in Europe to Improve Prevention and Care
JAPreventNCD – Joint Action on Preventing Non-Communicable Diseases
EUCAIM – European Federation for Cancer Images (under the European Cancer Imaging Initiative)
PROPHET – Personalised Prevention Roadmap for the Future Healthcare
ECHOS – Establishing of Cancer Mission Hubs: Networks and Synergies
CCI4EU – Comprehensive Cancer Infrastructures for the European Union
oncNGS – Next Generation Sequencing in Oncology
unCAN connect – a federated European cancer research data ecosystem
PRIME-ROSE – Precision Cancer Medicine Repurposing System Using Pragmatic Clinical Trials
