SWOG’s CMO: Familiar Face, Brand New Leadership Role

In last week’s Front Line we briefly announced the new role of SWOG chief medical officer (CMO). This week we give a proper introduction.

The first of the five major goals outlined in SWOG’s 2024 – 2028 Strategic Plan is to “ensure pre-eminent scientific leadership.” Among the steps to achieving that goal, the plan encourages the group to consider adding new leadership roles such as a chief medical officer to help monitor and oversee the implementation of SWOG policies to ensure compliance with best practices. 

This recommendation is an acknowledgement of the growing complexity of clinical oncology research and a recognition that the scope of responsibility for the group chair position is particularly broad and varied. 

That breadth is part of the reason we decided to take on this group chair role jointly, and it’s why we wrote a new CMO role into our grant applications. 

Chief medical officer is a leadership position in many research-related organizations, but to the best of our knowledge, SWOG is the first of the NCI-supported cooperative groups to establish such a position. 

And we’re extraordinarily lucky to have serving in that position Dr. Charles Blanke, group chair emeritus.

Having a CMO with the operational experience of Dr. Blanke adds crucial bandwidth to make SWOG even more operationally efficient, and it allows us as group chairs to spend more time addressing strategic questions and objectives. 

As CMO, Dr. Blanke oversees all quality assurance activities in our Network Operations Center, along with our SWOG-specific education and training initiatives.

He’s also the initial go-to person on clinical trial oversight issues related to quality assurance, serious adverse event reporting, auditing, and regulatory functions – for example, on questions related to compliance of investigational new drug (IND) studies with regulatory guidelines.

He trains and advises our executive officers on their function as committee liaisons and on committee chair oversight, and he coordinates grant programs with The Hope Foundation. 

He also serves as our subject matter expert when questions arise related to SWOG policies and procedures or in our education and training programs.

As CMO, Dr. Blanke works alongside our chief administrative officer/director of network operations to help oversee key administrative functions, and he collaborates closely with our vice chair for Clinical Trials Partnerships, helping us to continue to expand our non-federal research and networking with industry partners to secure new trial opportunities and funding.

Finally, in agreeing to continue in a SWOG leadership role, Dr. Blanke also helps ensure continuity, bringing an unparalleled organizational memory we can turn to when needed. 

We’re thrilled he continues to be a crucial member of SWOG’s leadership team. And that he’ll be sitting next to us during the town hall portion of our spring group meeting plenary session in San Francisco next month, joining us as we respond to your questions and ideas.

We hope you will be there at plenary as well, posing questions and offering ideas. 

The session is Friday, May 1, 2 – 4 pm PT, in-person and online.