ARC Portal's Dr Betty Zhang wins Best Poster at MOGA ASM 2026

This year's ASM theme, Reimagining Cancer Care: Is Less Doing More?, brought medical oncologists, trainees and researchers together to examine treatment de-escalation and what personalised care really means in practice.

Dr Zhang's winning poster, Navigating compassionate access to PARP inhibitor therapy (PARPi) for rare cancers with homologous recombination deficiency (HRD) alterations: the ARC Portal experience, set out a structured model for supporting access to biomarker-linked therapies beyond current PBS-reimbursed indications.

The work audited PARPi compassionate access requests facilitated through ARC Portal and the Stafford Fox Rare Cancer Program between January 2019 and April 2026. Of 26 requests, 23 (88.5%) were approved, spanning gynaecological and non-gynaecological rare cancers, including several cases where approval preceded PBS listing.

The poster builds longitudinal, real-world evidence to help inform regulatory, clinical and economic evaluation of PARPi, and sets out a framework that could translate to other biomarker-linked therapies — opening earlier, more equitable access for patients across Australia.

It's exactly the kind of work ARC Portal was designed to do: turning individual case reviews into evidence that strengthens decision-making and opens doors that might otherwise stay closed for clinicians and patients navigating a rare cancer diagnosis anywhere in the country.

ARC Portal was well represented at this year's ASM. Assoc Prof Bryan Chan, Dr Arabella Widders and Dr Chloe Georgiou joined Dr Zhang on the Gold Coast, connecting with clinicians and colleagues from across the oncology community over three days of scientific sessions, trainee education and networking.