BY LIZZY SMITH

 

If you have been thrust into the Cancer World because either you or a loved one is fighting this disease, you should be learning everything you can about treatment options and more. And if you're paying attention to cancer news, you may have heard about the Moonshot initiative. But what is it and what does it mean to you?

 

 

Last month during President Obama's 2016 State of the Union Address, Vice President Biden (who lost his son earlier this year to brain cancer) was appointed to head up the new National Moonshot Cancer initiative (or "Moonshot") aimed at ending cancer. To jump-start this effort, the White House allocated $1 billion in funding. According to NPR:

President Obama plans to ask Congress for $755 million in cancer-research funding as part of his 2017 budget, according to the White House.

That would bring the funding total to nearly $1 billion over the next two years to accelerate what the president called a "moonshot" to try to eliminate cancer. Congress has already approved $195 million in research funding in 2016.

According to a White House fact sheet, Moonshot will work to accelerate cancer research efforts and break down barriers to progress by enhancing data access, and facilitating collaborations with researchers, doctors, philanthropies, patients, and patient advocates, and biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies.  The initiative aims to bring about a decade’s worth of advances in five years, making more therapies available to more patients, while also improving our ability to prevent cancer and detect it at an early stage.

How Moonshot will work

• Moonshot will begin immediately with $195 million in new cancer activities at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in Fiscal Year 2016.
• The Fiscal Year 2017 Budget will propose to continue this initiative with $755 million in mandatory funds for new cancer-related research activities at both NIH and the Food and Drug Administration.
• The Departments of Defense and the Veterans Affairs are increasing their investments in cancer research, including through funding Centers of Excellence focused on specific cancers, and conducting large longitudinal studies to help determine risk factors and enhance treatment.

Supporting cutting edge research opportunities 

Cancer screenings: One may wonder why more cancer screenings aren't conducted more often. For example, basic blood work can help diagnose several cancers early-on. (This is how I was diagnosed with multiple myeloma-- through routine blood work. I did not know I was sick and the results were shocking to me. Thank goodness I had a doctor who quickly noticed abnormalities and ordered more tests. I wonder how many others could have started treatment earlier if they had a CBC test done every year at a minimal cost?) Early cancer detection is key to fighting disease. Moonshot hopes to capitalize on recent advances that can detect cancer early in disease growth.

Prevention & cancer vaccine development: Moonshot will speed the development, evaluation, and optimization of safe cancer vaccines targeting unique features of individual cancers.

Cancer immunotherapy and combination therapy:  Much exciting work in the world of cancer and, specifically, multiple myeloma, involves immunotherapy (which uses the body's own immune system to attack cancerous cells) and drug combinations. Moonshot will support research that capitalizes on the early successes of immunotherapy for cancer treatment and develop new combination therapies.

Sharing data 

In 2014, I attended the annual ASH Conference in San Francisco. Still relatively new to the Myeloma World, I had many questions and was on a quest to learn as much as possible. One of my key take-aways was how rare it was for researchers to share their data with others, whether it be with the public or private sector. Moonshot aims to encourage data sharing and develop mechanisms for doing better collaboration.

The FDA will also develop a virtual Oncology Center of Excellence to leverage the combined skills of regulatory scientists and reviewers with expertise in drugs, biologics, and devices.  This center work towards speeding up the process for developing new diagnostic tests, treatments, and therapies.

 

On February 1, Vice President Joe Biden sent out an email to supporters. In it, he writes: