A Springdale-based cancer center has quietly expanded its clinical-trial program, growing its research program from roughly 70 trials to nearly 150 over six years while opening a new $4 million trials suite built to handle the surge. Highlands Oncology Group, based in Springdale, Arkansas, now employs 60 full-time researchers and occupies nearly an entire floor of its new $30 million Springdale facility.
The expansion reflects a broader push by the independent, physician-owned practice to bring advanced drug trials and experimental treatments for patients with advanced cancer directly to Northwest Arkansas, according to Talk Business & Politics. The outlet reports the group increased its research staff by nearly 42% over five years and now lists 122 clinical trials on its website, spanning cancers from multiple myeloma to colorectal disease. Highlands Oncology says on its own site that it has been actively involved in clinical research for more than 26 years, and describes itself as the only community-based Phase I oncology clinical trial center in Arkansas, offering patients access to Phase I through Phase III therapies without leaving the region.
A Physician With 17 Years in the Region
Dr. Eric Schaefer, who specializes in lung and thoracic cancers, has worked in Northwest Arkansas for 17 years, per the same Talk Business & Politics report. Schaefer has said his father advised him early on to seek out an integrated physician group committed to research — advice that shaped his path to Highlands Oncology. He has treated patients with some of the most severe diagnoses the practice sees, including a woman diagnosed in her 30s with stage four lung cancer that had spread to her brain.
That patient, according to the report, has since seen her daughters move into high school and college. Schaefer started her on immunotherapy in 2016 after chemotherapy and a clinical trial caused setbacks, the outlet notes. He has pointed to shifting survival timelines across his specialty: some lung cancer patients now live three to four years, he said, compared with an earlier hoped-for average of 14 months, and some myeloma patients have life expectancies of 10 to 15 years versus roughly five years before newer therapies arrived.
Trials Spanning Breast, Prostate and Blood Cancers
The scale of the research effort is reflected in trial counts across disease types, per Talk Business & Politics: 29 trials for metastatic breast cancer, 19 for non-small cell lung cancer, eight each for multiple myeloma and prostate cancer, six for colorectal cancers, five for small cell lung cancer, and two for ovarian cancer. Highlands Oncology works closely with MD Anderson, sharing patients for clinical trials, and maintains contacts with MD Anderson in Houston and the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, the report states. Schaefer has said patients from Europe and across the United States travel to the practice for trials, and the group belongs to two national alliances that provide access to treatment protocols…