President Barack Obama announced a moonshot aimed at curing cancer, a project to be led by Vice President Joe Biden.
To The Moon
In 2016, President Barack Obama announced a White House Initiative—with then-Vice President Joe Biden in charge—that would catalyze unprecedented momentum in the development of real-world evidence and cancer informatics.
With reporting by Matthew Ong, The Cancer Letter led the national coverage of the Beau Biden Cancer Moonshot, as the bipartisan initiative came to be known, becoming a convener and leader in policy discussions. The Moonshot resulted in the creation of a dedicated cancer center at the FDA, and in an infusion of funds to the tune of $1.8 billion over 7 years, with NCI as the steward.
The Cancer Letter continues to build on this coverage in 2021, as Biden returns to the White House with a renewed national agenda for cancer research.
Did Patrick Soon-Shiong attempt to scoop President Barack Obama's State of the Union address?
Government agencies said the biotechnology billionaire Patrick Soon-Shiong had overstated the extent of their involvement in “Cancer MoonShot 2020,” the immunotherapy clinical trials program he put together.
The Obama administration will find the money to create a comprehensive oncology bioinformatics system, Vice President Joe Biden pledged Jan. 19 at a meeting of international cancer experts at the World Economic Forum in Davos-Klosters, Switzerland.
The text of Vice President Joe Biden's Jan. 19 remarks at a World Economic Forum meeting of international cancer experts in Davos-Klosters, Switzerland, follows:
Over the past century, we have had many wars on cancer, and now we have a national “moonshot” to be spearheaded by Vice President Joe Biden, announced in President Barack Obama's Jan. 12 State of the Union Address.
The White House announced a $1 billion initiative Feb. 1 to jumpstart the national cancer moonshot program—an ambitious proposal first announced by President Barack Obama during his final State of the Union address.
President Barack Obama Feb. 8 unveiled his budget proposal for the 2017 fiscal year—a $4.1 trillion spending blueprint that is unlikely to be passed by a Republican-controlled Congress.
President Barack Obama's Feb. 8 budget request for fiscal year 2017 slates $75 million in additional funding for FDA for the creation of a virtual Oncology Center of Excellence.
When the White House proposed a $1 billion startup fund for the National Cancer Moonshot, a largely unexpected directive to reform FDA raised many questions among oncology insiders.
At a meeting of the NCI Board of Scientific Advisors March 29, NCI officials had good news to report:
NCI announced a panel of advisors to inform the scientific direction and goals of Vice President Joe Biden's National Cancer Moonshot Initiative.
The Oncology Research Information Exchange Network and M2Gen formed a bioinformatics collaboration with Celgene Corp.
A foundation established by Silicon Valley entrepreneur Sean Parker—founder of Napster and first president of Facebook—has committed $250 million to research in cancer immunotherapy.
The Cancer Letter invited Jedd Wolchok, associate attending physician and chief of the Melanoma and Immunotherapeutics Service at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, to describe the workings of the just-announced Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy.
“There is more brain power in this room than exists in many countries,” said Vice President Joe Biden, addressing over 4,000 members of the American Association for Cancer Research, during a speech that turned personal at times, as he laid out several suggestions for accelerating progress.
NCI is preparing to open the Genomic Data Commons, a $20 million big data endeavor aimed at making raw genomic data publicly available.
The Genomic Data Commons, NCI's latest big data project, is poised to become a major player in oncology bioinformatics when it opens June 1.
“And I believe we need a moonshot in this country to cure cancer.”
The White House moonshot to accelerate progress in cancer research directs FDA to consolidate its oncology portfolio.
Greg Simon, executive director of the cancer moonshot task force, addressed the FDA-sponsored workshop for Accelerating Anticancer Agent Development and Validation in North Bethesda, Md., May 4.
A few years ago, at dinner with technology entrepreneur Larry Ellison, David Agus, director of the University of Southern California Center for Applied Molecular Medicine, mentioned his dream of opening an interdisciplinary cancer research center.
NCI is working to provide five to ten recommendations for Vice President Joe Biden's cancer moonshot program, officials said at a recent advisory committee meeting.
Vice President Joe Biden's National Cancer Moonshot Initiative has touched off an unprecedented national and international dialogue about cancer.
Seven years ago, when Congress sought to jumpstart the U.S. economy, few imagined that one aspect of the $800 billion stimulus program would turn electronic health records into the Tower of Babel.
At a roundtable discussion at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, Vice President Joe Biden urged greater efforts to aggregate cancer data.
CHICAGO—Vice President Joe Biden June 6 announced the NCI Genomic Data Commons as part of the National Cancer Moonshot Initiative.
Vice President Joe Biden challenged individual organizations and leading initiatives in oncology bioinformatics to interoperate and share data.
The FDA Oncology Center of Excellence—first proposed in the National Moonshot Cancer Initiative—is gaining support from oncology groups as well as in both chambers of Congress.
The Senate Committee on Appropriations marked up a bipartisan spending bill June 9 that gives NIH a $2 billion increase in the 2017 fiscal year.
The contract for operations and technical support at the Frederick National Laboratory for Cancer Research could be accepting proposals as early as next month—but NCI advisors said they are hoping to slow the recompetition process to reform the laboratory's mission.
Three health systems—Stanford Cancer Institute, Intermountain Healthcare and Providence Health and Services—have agreed to eliminate the electronic barriers between their medical records, tumor registries and genomics databases.
Jonathan Hirsch was studying neuroscience at Stanford University when he wandered into two oncology classes and saw an opportunity to change the way health systems handle genomic data.
How will the success of the moonshot be measured? NCI Acting Director Doug Lowy touched on the subject during the joint meeting of the institute's Board of Scientific Advisors and the National Cancer Advisory Board June 21.
After a year of trying to understand the biology and politics of cancer, Vice President Joe Biden admits that he has a stronger grasp on the nuts and bolts of Washington than the evolutionary mysteries known collectively as cancer.
Vice President Joe Biden announced the formation of the FDA Oncology Center of Excellence, which is intended to consolidate the agency's cancer portfolio and streamline regulatory pathways for cancer-related drugs, biologics, and devices.
Richard Pazdur, currently the director of the FDA Office of Hematology and Oncology Products, will serve as acting director of the newly formed FDA Oncology Center of Excellence.
A transcript of Biden’s speech at the National Cancer Moonshot Summit at Howard University.
The House Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor-HHS marked up a bipartisan spending bill July 6 that gives NIH a $1.25 billion increase in the 2017 fiscal year.
Vice President Joe Biden announced a new NCI application programming interface June 29 that will enable third-party developers to connect their bioinformatics software to NCI's clinical trials database.
When the Genomic Data Commons opened June 6, the $20 million portal that consolidates NCI's datasets contained genomic information from 14,500 patients.
Making data broadly available to clinicians and researchers has always been a part of the mission for Foundation Medicine Inc., said Michael Pellini, the company's CEO.
Foundation Medicine approached NCI with the idea to make their data useful in the public domain.
The Association of American Cancer Institutes and the White House Cancer Moonshot Task Force are developing a new method for funding research at academic cancer centers through private investment and philanthropy.
The Blue Ribbon Panel—a group of experts selected to identify scientific opportunities for the National Cancer Moonshot Initiative—has submitted 10 recommendations to the National Cancer Advisory Board.
NCI will urge increased and sustained appropriations for carrying out ten recommendations put forward by the Blue Ribbon Panel, the institute's scientific advisory panel to the National Cancer Moonshot Initiative.
Vice President Joe Biden Sept. 16 announced a series of initiatives to improve the safety, accessibility, and impact of clinical research—one of the central goals of the National Cancer Moonshot Initiative.
The National Cancer Moonshot Initiative is not slated to receive funding in fiscal 2017—neither the House nor Senate appropriations bill includes the $680 million the White House proposed for Vice President Joe Biden's project.
Two of the nation's biggest nonprofit health systems—Dignity Health and Catholic Health Initiatives—launched a precision medicine program that has the potential to create the largest collection of clinical cancer data ever compiled by a single organization.
A continuing resolution passed Congress passed Sept. 28 will avoid a government shutdown and fund federal agencies through Dec. 9.
NCI has suspended re-competition of the the $400 million-a-year operations and technical support contract for the Frederick National Laboratory for Cancer Research.
Vice President Joe Biden and the National Cancer Moonshot Task Force published their final reports Oct. 17, summarizing the moonshot's achievements, and outlining five strategic goals and action plans for the years to come.
President Barack Obama accepted Vice President Joe Biden and the National Cancer Moonshot Task Force's reports—blueprints for how the federal government should focus on cancer research, oncology bioinformatics, and patient access and care over the next few years.
After four decades of few improvements in the treatment for acute myeloid leukemia, the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society has launched a precision medicine trial to identify targeted treatments for patients with AML.
Nearly 50 cancer-related organizations urged Congressional leaders to ensure that funds slated for research in the National Cancer Moonshot Initiative go directly to NCI—as opposed to NIH or any other federal entity.
President Barack Obama's legacy health care programs—the Affordable Care Act, and the National Cancer Moonshot Initiative—have been thrown into uncertainty.
The House and Senate leadership postponed appropriations for fiscal 2017 in favor of a second continuing resolution that runs through March 31, 2017.
Earlier this year, billionaire Patrick Soon-Shiong created considerable confusion by launching a cancer “moonshot” program at the same time that President Barack Obama announced an initiative that went by pretty much the same name.
In an unusual move, the National Cancer Advisory Board fired off a letter urging Congress to authorize additional “moonshot” funds, and—just as importantly—to place these new funds in the NCI budget.
The House of Representatives has approved a revised version of the 21st Century Cures Act, a comprehensive $6.3 billion health care reform measure that would fund the National Cancer Moonshot Initiative and amend FDA standards for regulating drugs and devices.
The Senate approved the 21st Century Cures Act, a wide-ranging bill that authorizes $1.8 billion over seven years for cancer research as well as $500 million over the next decade for FDA to streamline drug and device approval processes.
Doug Lowy will continue to lead NCI in his role as acting director in 2017 unless president-elect Donald Trump decides to appoint a different, new director.
President Barack Obama Dec. 13 signed the 21st Century Cures Act, a bill that changes regulatory standards at FDA, slates additional research funds for NIH, and authorizes $1.8 billion over seven years for Vice President Joe Biden's National Cancer Moonshot Initiative.
After leaving the White House, Vice President Joe Biden plans to consolidate his work on the Cancer Moonshot into an independent, nonprofit organization, while juggling non-cancer programs at two universities.
As administrations change, cancer research stands in an unusually strong position, NCI Acting Director Douglas Lowy said in an interview with The Cancer Letter.
With a simplified tech transfer agreement, six industry partners and 15 compounds (but no dedicated research funds), NCI challenges investigators to think creatively.
The wide-ranging public health initiative will cease to exist on Jan. 20—eight days short of a year after it was created—when the keys to the White House are handed over to Donald Trump.
On his last full day as FDA commissioner, Robert Califf announced the formation of the Oncology Center of Excellence and named Richard Pazdur its director.
Announcing the NCI Formulary, the Jan. 13 issue of The Cancer Letter includes comments suggesting the road to new therapies will now get “easier” and other comments indicated that industry and/or NCI collaborators will “not provide support other than drug access”.
Overnight, cancer pharmaceuticals billionaire Patrick Soon-Shiong stopped using the trademark “MoonShot” to describe his health initiatives, opting instead to use the less grabby, but equally ambitious, name “cancer breakthroughs.”
The MD Anderson complaint against Patrick Soon-Shiong and his business entities, filed Nov. 30, 2016, in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas, argues that the controversial billionaire's use of the moonshot trademark created confusion that affected both MD Anderson and the White House initiative headed by then Vice President Joe Biden.
The data on the second most common blood cancer—with genomic information from about 1,400 patients—was compiled by the Multiple Myeloma Research Foundation through a genome mapping initiative and a $40 million network of clinical trials.
It took the Multiple Myeloma Research Foundation nearly a decade and over $40 million to create what the foundation describes as the largest disease-specific cancer genome dataset in existence.
It's fair to say that eight years ago, when the Obama administration infused the economy with $800 billion in stimulus funding, policymakers likely did not expect the health information technology industry to evolve into fiefdoms guarded by legions of lawyers and walls of proprietary code.
When you are making a point that the country that put humans on the moon also has the capacity to cure cancers, venue and timing matter. On Sept. 12, President Joe Biden chose John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum—and the 60th anniversary of Kennedy’s 1962 moonshot speech—to announce his plan’s latest iteration.
The Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health will issue $240 million in cancer-related awards over the next few weeks, the White House announced at a Cancer Cabinet meeting Sept. 13.
