The Royal Marsden Hospital (RMH), together with its academic partner, The Institute of Cancer Research (ICR) is the largest and most comprehensive cancer centre in Europe, treating over 50,000 NHS and private patients every year. It is a centre of excellence with an international reputation for groundbreaking research and pioneering the very latest in cancer treatments and technologies, as well as specialising in cancer diagnosis and education. The RMH, with the ICR, is the only National Institute for Health Research Biomedical Research Centre in the UK dedicated solely to cancer. First awarded the status in 2006, it was re-awarded in 2011.

The RMH's Neuro-oncology Unit provides treatment and care for people with brain and spinal tumours and includes specialist neuro-oncology clinical and research staff who work in collaboration with neurosurgeons, neurologists and endocrinologists in the London area and throughout the UK. The latest radiotherapy and chemotherapy treatments for brain tumours are available at both, the RMH's hospitals in Sutton and Chelsea, together with a full range of patient support and care services.

The RMH Drug Development Unit is a world-renowned centre for early drug development and is supported by Cancer Research UK, an Experimental Cancer Medicine Centre (ECMC) grant, and a core grant from the Biomedical Research Centre at The Royal Marsden and the ICR. The Drug Development Unit aims to provide a pathway from preclinical drug discovery to proof-of-principle Phase I trials and the evaluation of novel targeted treatments. It is also designed to drive collaboration between laboratory-based and clinical teams and treats close to 300 patients a year on Phase I trials, making it one of the largest facilities of its kind in the world. It has also actively recruits patients with primary malignant brain tumours onto early phase clinical trials, having recruited more than a hundred patients over the last 12 years (Coleman et al ASCO 2016).