New immunotherapy brain cancer clinical trial in memory of Baroness Margaret McDonagh
21 July 2025
Publish date: 21 July 2025
A clinical trial for patients newly diagnosed with glioblastoma, an aggressive form of brain cancer, has opened at the NIHR UCLH Clinical Research Facility based in the National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery.
Led by consultant UCLH medical oncologist and UCL honorary associate professor Paul Mulholland, the UCL sponsored Win-Glio trial will recruit 16 patients over an 18-month period.
Patients will receive immunotherapy treatment using the drug ipilimumab, prior to the standard treatment when their immune system is at its strongest.
Following treatment in the trial, patients will go on to have the current standard treatment of surgery where appropriate, radiotherapy and chemotherapy and will receive ongoing monitoring by Dr Mulholland and his team.
This trial follows the NeAT-GLIO clinical trial led by Dr Mulholland and funded by the Jon Moulton Charity Trust that had to close due to lack of recruitment of patients. However, the one patient recruited to that trial is doing well with no active tumour present on scans more than two and half years on from treatment (see case study below).
Dame Siobhain McDonagh MP led a fundraising campaign and raised more than £1 million to cover the costs of this new trial, including holding a dinner celebrating the legacy of her sister, Baroness Margaret McDonagh. She has been on a mission to find a cure for glioblastoma since losing Margaret to the disease in 2023, a campaign started by Margaret after her diagnosis. Siobhain met Dr Paul Mulholland when he was treating Margaret.
Dame Siobhain, MP for Mitcham and Morden and chair of the all-party parliamentary group on brain tumours, said: “My beloved sister Margaret was appalled to discover that there had been no advances in brain cancer treatment for decades when she was diagnosed with glioblastoma. Changing this was Margaret’s final campaign and one that I have continued in her memory. I am so grateful to the many people who knew and respected Margaret who have come together and helped to raise funds and campaign for this new trial that we are calling Margaret’s Trial.”
Dr Paul Mulholland said: “When I met Margaret she said to me ‘what can I do to support you to cure this disease’. I am incredibly grateful to her and to Siobhain who whose campaigning and fundraising in her sister’s memory has led to this new clinical trial opening for patients with this most aggressive form of brain cancer that has such a poor prognosis, with most patients surviving just nine months after diagnosis.”
“The crucial element of this trial is that patients will have their immune system boosted by the drug before they have any other treatment, when they are fit and well enough to tolerate the immunotherapy.”
“We saw with Ben, the one patient recruited to the immunotherapy study, NeAT-GLIO, that he has had clear scans since having the treatment and the tumour hasn’t returned more than two and a half years later.”
“We’re taking everything we have learned from previous trials into this new study and we are already planning follow on trials. My aim is to find a cure for glioblastoma and I am very thankful to Dame Siobhain McDonagh MP, the Jon Moulton Charity Trust and The National Brain Appeal for their support on this journey.”
The National Brain Appeal is currently funding two posts in support of Dr Mulholland’s research, a clinical nurse specialist dedicated to supporting glioblastoma patients at the difficult time of diagnosis and helping them to decide if they wish to enter a clinical trial, and a senior computational biologist, who has a detailed understanding of glioblastoma genetics, works with large, complex data sets and designs computational pipelines that will process and analyse patient samples and research experiments.
Dr Mulholland added: “Our aim is to rapidly bring about improved outcomes for patients with glioblastoma by bringing together the best science, with a multidisciplinary team of clinicians, experimental scientists, bioinformaticians and the pharmaceutical industry. We want to find a cure for this devastating disease.”
Ben was diagnosed with glioblastoma, in October 2022 when he was just 40 years old.
At the time of diagnosis, a family friend recommended that Ben should be referred to The National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery at UCLH, where they met consultant medical oncologist Dr Paul Mulholland.
He recruited Ben to a clinical trial he was running where Ben was the first patient in the world to receive the immunotherapy drug ipilimumab to treat glioblastoma prior to standard treatment.
Now aged 43 and two years and eight months on from having this treatment, Ben’s scans are clear with no signs of tumour.
Dr Paul Mulholland said: “It is very unusual to have a clear scan with glioblastoma, especially when he didn’t have the follow-up surgery that had been planned to remove all of the tumour that was initially visible on scans. We hope that the immunotherapy and follow up treatment Ben has had will hold his tumour at bay and it has so far, which we are delighted to see.”
Ben got married to Emily two months after the immunotherapy treatment in January 2023 and in April this year Emily gave birth to their daughter Mabel.
Emily said: “Getting this diagnosis was the most traumatic experience. We were grappling with the fact that Ben had gone from being apparently perfectly healthy to having months to live. Had we not met Dr Mulholland, that would have been it for us. We felt we had a lucky break in an otherwise devastating situation.”
Ben went on to have the current standard treatment of radiotherapy and chemotherapy. He has quarterly scans which continue to be clear.
Ben’s employer, JP Morgan has been “incredibly supportive from day one," said Ben. “We obviously don’t know what the future holds but having had the immunotherapy treatment and getting these encouraging scan results has given Emily and I a bit of hope.”
Baby Mabel is keeping Ben and Emily busy. They also have a rescue dog, Jerry, and enjoy heading out for walks with him and Mabel.
Ben said: “We are focused on rebuilding the life we thought we had lost and enjoying being parents.”
Emily added: “We are trying to live as normal a life as possible. We are in a unique position of which there is no precedent and which comes with a great deal of uncertainty. We want to live each day as if it were our last but we also want to plan for the future which we hope to have.”
Ben said: “I was in a clinical trial of one which is why we don’t know what the future holds. I am delighted that this new trial, with the same immunotherapy drug I received, is going ahead and others will have the opportunity to take part. It will give people newly diagnosed with glioblastoma some hope.”
Patients interested in finding out more about the Win-Glio trial should discuss with their treating consultant.
