Professor Andrew Wardley

Professor Andrew Wardley conceived, developed, and led a fully integrated, patient focussed, research centred, holistic breast cancer service directly improving patient care and access to new treatments, from 2001. This remains one of the few comprehensive breast cancer services, inclusive of a dedicated secondary breast cancer workstream in UK. He is committed to leading innovative changes in treatments and redesigning models of cancer care across cancer systems, especially relating to systemic anti-cancer therapies.

Professor Wardley has led breast cancer research in Manchester for 20 years and is a leader in national and international trials, many of which have led to major advances in breast cancer outcomes for patients. He has led implementation of many of these advances into services developments through commissioning initiatives locally and nationally, and contributed to international breast cancer guidelines.

Receiving his primary (MB.ChB. 1989) and research degrees (MSc. & MD. 2000) from the University of Manchester, UK, and completing general & higher medical training in 1993 and 2000, respectively. His oncology training in Manchester and Leeds, included haematological oncology, inspiring him to the idea of research opportunity and access for all breast cancer patients- “a question to answer for every person”. His drive and his clinical entrepreneurial leadership have led to Professor Wardley being a catalyst for reform in oncology business services nationally and internationally, with special attention to health inequalities. Professor Wardley’s model of care has been incorporated into the European Code of Cancer Practice and services innovations in NHS England. Challenges to advancing his model of care within NHS led to the founding of Outreach Research & Innovation Group Limited in March 2020. Outreach 

Research & Innovation Group is a leading oncology business service provider aimed at reducing health inequalities through service redesign and development and access to research.

Professor Wardley, Clinical Director of the Christie Clinical Research Facility since 2011, led a successful bids for National Institutes of Health Research for Clinical Research Facilities in 2012 and 2016 as part of NIHR Manchester Clinical Research Facility, for which he is cancer and outreach lead. This together with his role as director of systemic anti-cancer therapy in Greater Manchester & Cheshire spurred his desire to improve access to clinical trials across systems. He is driving this across UK as Strategy Director for the Association of Cancer Physicians.

His clinical research focus is on identifying resistance mechanisms, new treatments, and optimising treatment pathways for breast cancer. He was involved in the early development of circulating tumour DNA as a biomarker of treatment response and in the clinical development of many therapies for HER2-positive breast cancer. In 2020, he was appointed Chair of the National Cancer Research Institute (NCRI) Breast Research Group. He leads initiatives to ensure international guidelines for primary medical therapy are adopted in UK including response directed therapy.

Professor Wardley is passionate about improving quality of and access to care for cancer patients and recognises the need for an integrated system approach to delivery oncology services.