Changing Cancer Research: Biden Cancer Initiative On What’s Next
By Leah Rosenbaum
February 23, 2018 | Gregory Simon, President of the Biden Cancer Initiative, began with three stories of cancer. Two friends of his were diagnosed with cancer in 2014, Simon said, one with glioblastoma, another with an aggressive form of multiple myeloma. That same year, Simon himself was diagnosed with Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia (CLL). All three got treatment, but only Simon was able to defeat the disease. “At the same time I was healthy after six months of chemo,” he said, “I lost two friends.”
He told the stories during his keynote address at the 25th annual Molecular Medicine Tri-Conference*. The disparities between the treatments’ success rates were shocking to him. This story illustrates, he said, the current state of cancer treatment: there are some cancers we can treat all the time, some we can treat some of the time, and still others that can never be successfully treated. “What I’m going to talk to you about today,” Simon said, “is changing the way we think about what we’re doing in [cancer] research.”
The Biden Cancer Initiative was announced last summer as a way to continue the progress of the Cancer Moonshot initiative started by President Obama in 2016, and spearheaded by Vice President Biden. By the end of the Obama/Biden administration, the Cancer Moonshot program had launched several cancer research projects, and Vice President Biden had helped pass the 21st Century Cures Act, which provides $1.8 billion over seven years for the Cancer Moonshot’s priorities.
During his talk, Simon discussed the idea of “punctuated equilibrium,” an evolutionary biology theory proposed by Stephen Jay Gould and Niles Eldredge in 1972. The theory, Simon said, is that long periods of evolutionary stasis are punctuated every so often by a flurry of extreme growth and change. When it comes to the United States’ evolution of cancer research, Simon proposed that there have been three “punctuation marks” that have sped up or changed the direction of national cancer research. The first was President Nixon’s declared War on Cancer in 1971. The second was the September 1998 march on Washington to demand an increase to the national cancer research budget. And the third was the 2016 announcement of the Cancer Moonshot program.
“Right now,” Simon said, “the equilibrium [of cancer research] is disturbed. And it should be disturbed.” Since the end of the Obama/Biden administration, the Cancer Moonshot program has changed from a government program to a social movement. Or, as Simon said, it went “from the White House, to your house.”
One of Simon’s main goals with the Biden Cancer Initiative is to make the medical system more centered on patients, and less centered on doctors and bills. He found out firsthand during his own cancer treatment that “the system was never designed with you in mind as a patient.” But that can change. One of the Biden Cancer Initiative’s main projects, along with increased data sharing and data standards, is to change cancer clinical trials and make them more accessible and “patient friendly.”
Although changing the landscape of cancer research in America sounds daunting, Simon has a simple solution. “It’s easier to build than rebuild,” he told the audience. Simon and the Biden Cancer Initiative are looking for experienced innovators that are willing to disrupt the current status quo of cancer research, in order to build something extraordinary.
Sara Radcliffe, President and CEO of the California Life Sciences Association, might know a few people. Radcliffe gave a state-of-the-industry report on the life sciences in California. According to the California Life Sciences Association’s most recent report, California leads the nation in biomedical jobs, with over 77,000 people in the state working in the medical devices, instruments, and diagnostics sector. The Bay Area, host to TriCon, has more than 72,600 life sciences employees alone.
One reason that California’s life sciences industry is so successful is the plethora of great academic research facilities here. She praised the University of California system in particular. “Without a great education system,” Radcliffe said, “there is no life sciences leadership.”
It turns out that the development of new drugs and cancer therapies is a top research priority for many California institutions. Last year, said Radcliffe, California institutions filed 429 applications for Investigational New Drugs (INDs) related to cancer research, up from 404 the year before. Many of these drugs will go on to clinical trials. Innovative products like these, said Radcliffe, along with California’s dedication to cancer research, is one of the main reasons that there has been a tremendous improvement in cancer treatment over the past two decades.
* The Molecular Medicine Tri-Conference; February 11-16, 2018; San Francisco. The Tri-Conference is produced by Cambridge Healthtech Institute, the parent company of Bio-IT World.