The World Health Organization and St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital Dec. 13 announced plans to establish the Global Platform for Access to Childhood Cancer Medicines to provide an uninterrupted supply of quality-assured childhood cancer medicines to low- and middle-income countries.
St. Jude is making a six-year, $200 million investment to launch the platform, which will provide medicines at no cost to countries participating in the pilot phase. This is the largest financial commitment for a global effort in childhood cancer medicines to date, cancer center officials said.
“Close to nine in 10 children with cancer live in low- and middle-income countries,” Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO director-general, said in a statement. “Survival in these countries is less than 30%, compared with 80% in high-income countries. This new platform, which builds on the success of the Global Initiative for Childhood Cancer launched with St. Jude in 2018, will help redress this unacceptable imbalance and give hope to many thousands of parents faced with the devastating reality of a child with cancer.”
The platform aims to provide safe and effective cancer medicines to approximately 120,000 children between 2022 and 2027, with the expectation to scale up in future years. The platform will provide end-to-end support—consolidating global demand to shape the market; assisting countries with the selection of medicines; developing treatment standards; and building information systems to track the provision of effective care and drive innovation.
“As I reflect back on the journey, this will be one of the most important things St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital ever does,” St. Jude President and CEO James Downing said in a statement. “This is a program that will provide a cornerstone of quality care to children everywhere in the world. And so, moving forward, I see this as essential for us to do this collaboratively with all the participants across the globe focused on childhood cancer. We will change the outlook for children everywhere.”
Medicine availability in low- and middle-income countries is often complicated by higher prices, interruptions in supply and out-of-pocket expenditures that result in financial hardship.
According to a WHO Noncommunicable Disease Country Capacity survey published in 2020, only 29% of low-income countries report that cancer medicines are generally available to their populations, compared with 96% of high-income countries. By consolidating the needs of children with cancer globally, the new platform will curtail the purchasing of substandard and falsified medicines that results from unauthorized purchases and the limited capacity of national regulatory authorities.
“For many years, we’ve struggled with getting essential medicines to children,” WHO Cancer Control Officer André Ilbawi said in a statement. “And it’s because of a variety of factors—whether it’s a lack of money, a lack of infrastructure, or lack of the treatment guidelines that are needed to give the best possible care. But by consolidating this request, by bringing governments and partners to the table, we will change this and in the near future.”
During an initial two-year pilot phase, medicines will be purchased and distributed to 12 countries through a process involving governments, cancer centers, and nongovernmental
organizations already active in providing cancer care. Discussions are already ongoing to determine the countries that will participate in this pilot phase. By the end of 2027, it is expected that 50 countries will receive childhood cancer medicines through the platform.
“This is, I think, for the pediatric oncology community, the next frontier,” St. Jude Global Director Carlos Rodriguez-Galindo said in a statement. “We cannot stop now.”
The World Health Organization and St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital first collaborated in 2018, when St. Jude became the first WHO Collaborating Centre for Childhood Cancer and committed $15 million for the creation of the Global Initiative for Childhood Cancer (The Cancer Letter, Oct. 12, 2018; May 14, 2021)..
The Global Platform for Access to Childhood Cancer Medicines synergizes with the Global Initiative, which supports more than 50 governments in building and sustaining local cancer programs and aims to increase survival to 60% by 2030.
