Photo by Tim Bauer
The International Neoadjuvant Melanoma Consortium (INMC), of which Melanoma Institute Australia’s Professor Long is a founder with three colleagues from MD Anderson USA, has been awarded the 2025 Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer Collaboration Award for its work in pioneering neoadjuvant immunotherapy for melanoma.
The Collaboration Award recognises key collaborators in the field that have helped move cancer immunotherapy forward by collaborating with various stakeholders, including across geographic regions.
The consortium commenced in 2016, and since that time has grown to include > 500 clinician and researcher members from around the world, with executive leadership from Melanoma Institute Australia Faculty, alongside colleagues from MD Anderson USA, The Netherlands, and Italy.
‘As one of the founders and leaders of the International Neoadjuvant Melanoma Consortium, I am so proud of what we have achieved, including MIA’s role within the consortium to progress practice-changing neoadjuvant drug therapy clinical trials,’ said MIA Medical Director, Professor Georgina Long AO.
‘Neoadjuvant, or pre-surgery drug therapy has turned the melanoma treatment paradigm on its head and has untold potential to also impact other cancers and save countless lives,’ she said.
Results from the NADINA neoadjuvant clinical trial, jointly led by MIA’s Prof Long and The Netherlands Cancer Institute’s Prof Blank, led to Australia recently becoming the first country in the world to subsidise neoadjuvant immunotherapy for Stage III melanoma patients. Read more.
Prof Long designed and is leading a multi-disciplinary biomarker-driven neoadjuvant trial at MIA and across Australia later this year. The trial showcases MIA’s expertise and multidisciplinary team care, using a set of novel combination immunotherapies in melanoma to push survival rates even higher.
