In the absence of the federal funding, cancer research will be leaning on private funders. But few private funders have the freedom to ask fundamental questions—questions whose answers may not have an immediate clinical impact but can dramatically advance scientific knowledge.
This episode is available on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.
In this episode of In the Headlines, Paul Goldberg, publisher of The Cancer Letter, and Jacquelyn Cobb, associate editor, talk about the differences between private and federal research questions, and their interviews about cancer research funding with Karen Knudsen, CEO of the Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy, and Brian Druker, professor of medicine and JELD-WEN Chair of Leukemia Research at Oregon Health & Science University Knight Cancer Institute.
“Foundations play a role in focusing research collaborations and so forth, and changing the direction of research,” Paul said. “Yes. But they cannot do what the federal government has always done, and there is no substitute for NIH. So if anybody wants to destroy NIH, there will be nothing to replace it except disease.”
Stories mentioned in this podcast include:
- Karen Knudsen tells us why she took the CEO job at the Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy
- Amid HHS upheaval, Bhattacharya takes the helm at NIH, Makary at FDA. Meanwhile, NASEM sounds “SOS” for health infrastructure
- Brian Druker, developer of Gleevec, eyes a new feat: Setting the Boston Marathon fundraising record
- Rathmell: We must put the individual at the center of our approach to ending cancer
This episode was transcribed using transcription services. It has been reviewed by our editorial staff, but the transcript may be imperfect.
The following is a transcript of this week’s In the Headlines, a weekly series on The Cancer Letter podcast:
Jacquelyn Cobb: This week on The Cancer Letter Podcast.
Paul Goldberg: One of the things I cannot figure out for the life of me is what is happening with the Frederick contract, which is enormous. I call people, they don’t call me back.
Jacquelyn Cobb: If anyone has any tips call Paul.
Paul Goldberg: Yeah, yeah please. That’s brilliant. We can ask people to call in. Call anonymously if you wish. Email us, send us documents anonymously to our PO Box. I don’t really know. I just would love to find out, because NCI could cut a whole lot of it through Frederick. Would the world be worse off? Probably. It was very important in the Covid research era, and it does a lot of really important things like the RAS initiative and so forth. So that would add to our damage, excuse me, impact report.
You’re listening to The Cancer Letter Podcast. The Cancer Letter is a weekly, independent magazine, covering oncology since 1973. I’m your host, Paul Goldberg, editor and publisher of The Cancer Letter.
Jacquelyn Cobb: And I’m your host, Jacquelyn Cobb, associate editor of The Cancer Letter. We’ll be bringing you the latest stories, groundbreaking research and critical conversations shaping oncology.
Paul Goldberg: So let’s get going.
Jacquelyn Cobb: Hello, Paul. Good to have you back. Did I scare you?
Paul Goldberg: I was just checking my news feed and then it’s like, I may hear a voice.
Jacquelyn Cobb: Voice of God. Hello, Paul, are you ready to begin?
Paul Goldberg: Yes.
Jacquelyn Cobb: All right. Well, I can take us through the headlines this week. Paul, you had a conversation with Karen Knudsen, former CEO of the American Cancer Society, about her taking the CEO job at the Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy. This has been a question on everybody’s mind after it was made public that she was no longer going to be CEO of ACS. It was like, “Where’s she going to go?” So really fun to have a conversation with her and hear about how she chose to take that position.
We had a roundup of all things happening in Washington this week, once again, including Bhattacharya and Makary’s beginning their roles at NIH and FDA respectively, and HHS firings, and a letter signed by almost 2,000 members of the National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicines about the upheaval at HHS, calling President Trump’s actions “An assault on science.”
Additionally, I had a conversation with Brian Druker about his plans to run the Boston Marathon this year with his daughter, which was a really fun conversation for me also as a runner, just a little bit of a nerding out session together, it was lovely. He’s trying to beat the individual fundraising record for the Boston Marathon, which is $507,000.
Paul Goldberg: No, no, no, 507… Yeah, hundred thousand, sorry.
Jacquelyn Cobb: 507, 3 zeros.
Paul Goldberg: Indeed.
Jacquelyn Cobb: The proceeds would go to Leukemia and Lymphoma Society and then finally we had a column by Kimryn Rathmell, former NCI director, about making the individual, not necessarily just the patient, but every individual in the US the focus of cancer research. So yeah, we have a lot to dive into. It was very fun for me to write a story that was a little bit removed from the craziness happening in Washington right now. And I know Paul, it was nice to not have Trump on the cover this week.
Can you tell me a little bit about your story with Karen?
Paul Goldberg: Yeah, actually, let’s just go to the broader point, which is not everything happening in the world is about Trump. It’s a tough point to be making today as the markets continue to plunge and as one should not look at the portfolio, stock portfolios like 401k’s and so forth. But my inability to retire only adds to my commitment to The Cancer Letter to continue to cover this. So… Not that there was ever any discussion of my retirement, which I’ve just started. Oh boy.
So yeah, it was really great to see the fact that Karen landed, that Karen Knudsen landed at PICI, which is an important player in this field, and it’s obviously, she is someone who is able to run an organization and a nonprofit like ACS, who understands how cancer centers operate, academic medicine, academic oncology, and she’s also someone with real smarts in business. So, that is a good hire for them and a good place for Dr. Knudsen to land.
So, it was really fun to talk to her because it just kind of reminds you that life goes on, that it’s not all about Trump.
Jacquelyn Cobb: And his actions. We have to figure out some way of dealing with this. Right?
So, that was a big part of what me and Druker talked about was the fact that in the absence of the federal funding that we’re accustomed to, we’re going to be leaning on more private funding nowadays, not we, I keep forgetting, I’m not actually a cancer researcher, but the field is going to be leaning on more private sources of funding.
Paul Goldberg: But also talking with Karen about it, she’s got more money to give out than Brian moment who’s trying to raise 507 plus thousand. Yeah. Foundations can do a lot. Foundations play a role in focusing research collaborations and so forth, and changing the direction of research. Yes. But they cannot do what the federal government has always done, and there is no substitute for NIH. So if anybody wants to destroy NIH, there will be nothing to replace it except disease.
Jacquelyn Cobb: Yeah, yeah. Can you be a little more specific about what that actually means, Paul? Why is the government so vital in…
Paul Goldberg: Well, just the amounts of money. The government is the number one funder of biomedical research and then cancer, it’s even more historic because in the National Cancer Act of 1971 represents the first time that as government declared war on the disease. And if we lose that and block grants are not the same thing, plus you lose peer review, in which case, you might as well just not fund anything and just let disease take over. So. Would be…
Jacquelyn Cobb: Yeah. What about also the fact that the government has more ability to fund the basic science, the fundamental research that leads to, they don’t have the responsibility to stakeholders. They don’t need to make any sort of profit on drugs. They can do things that are more discovery oriented. Right?
Paul Goldberg: Well, the government represents the healthcare, not the healthcare industry. And so the questions that a government funded study asks is not a question that deals with “How can I make more money?”
Jacquelyn Cobb: Yeah.
Paul Goldberg: I mean, it’s nice to have both kinds of studies.
Jacquelyn Cobb: Yeah, you need both.
Paul Goldberg: You need both. Yeah, absolutely. So Parker Institute is not going to be asking the same questions as the NCI Division of Cancer Prevention Control, for example, or the cooperative groups funded clinical trials, cooperative groups funded by NCI. NCI sometimes ask questions that are about, should this be treated or should this be watched, or does something work? Doesn’t work? Does something not work? And sometimes you get negative studies.
Jacquelyn Cobb: Yeah.
Paul Goldberg: And public health is really what it’s about for government-funded studies, although it’s also studies that end up fueling the biotech industry and the pharmaceutical industry and help them make very large amounts of money. Thank God. In fact, really the only way to tame this situation right now, I think, is to have more involvement by pharma and biotech in moderating what some of the folks who are chainsawing through NIH right now.
Jacquelyn Cobb: What do you mean? Why do you think that?
Paul Goldberg: Well, because industry makes money. It’s about making money. If you chainsaw your way through NIH, industry is not going to make money. So the administration needs to hear from people who generate billions of dollars for the economy. Now, I’m not really sure what that means anymore, given the situation that’s raging in the markets right now. Does anybody even care if the country is going poor?
Jacquelyn Cobb: Yeah. I mean, I’m sure people care, but…
Paul Goldberg: People care.
Jacquelyn Cobb: Yeah.
Paul Goldberg: But it takes a while. Now, there’s a really interesting question that I’ve been talking to my sources all through DC and the thing that everybody agrees on is, on both sides of the aisle. The aisle has nothing to do with it, is that we have no idea how much has been cut, who is still there, who is not there. So the impact report, I’m trying not to say damage report. The impact report is not complete. We have no idea. And there’s more coming. The more coming, this is on the NIH side alone, is $2.6 billion has to be cut from contracts. And for NCI, that means roughly, this is all estimates, $900 million in contracts for this year. This year is about, we’re way into it about halfway through. So cutting that. That’s a lot to cut. I don’t know what they’re going to cut. Nobody knows what they’re going to cut. So impact, it’s probably too early to do the impact reports or if you wish, damage reports.
Jacquelyn Cobb: Yeah. Yeah. What is NCI’s contract like total?
Paul Goldberg: I don’t know.
Jacquelyn Cobb: You don’t know? Yeah. That’d be an interesting question. I feel like how much is a [inaudible 00:12:15]
Paul Goldberg: Well, yeah, they’re asking for 35% cuts. So I guess… Do the math.
Jacquelyn Cobb: Do the math. I cannot do the math, but…
Paul Goldberg: Yeah.
Jacquelyn Cobb: Somebody can.
Paul Goldberg: Well, $2.6 billion should be 35% of the contracts for NIH and smarter people than me. People who are better in arithmetic calculate this at $900 million for NCI.
Jacquelyn Cobb: Got it. Yeah.
Paul Goldberg: I can sort of guess it, but I’d have to get my cell phone and calculator and my Texas Instruments.
Jacquelyn Cobb: My arithmetic specifically has really suffered as I’ve become a professional writer and my lovely partner who’s in medical school and loves math and all that stuff has taken to quizzing me so I don’t lose my multiplication tables and things like that. So I cannot help with the percentages right now. That’s unfortunate.
Paul Goldberg: Is he here?
Jacquelyn Cobb: He’s not here. He’s at school.
Paul Goldberg: Oh. We could have asked him to do the math, the arithmetic, we’re going to have him walk in and say, and solve the following problem. 35% of the contracts is $900 million. What is X? What is the whole number?
Jacquelyn Cobb: Solve for X.
Paul Goldberg: Solve for X.
Jacquelyn Cobb: Oh my gosh. I’ll send him a message and ask him to do it later.
Paul Goldberg: You can. Do you want to text him right now?
Jacquelyn Cobb: I don’t think, he’s in the middle of class. I don’t think he’s going to respond. But we can add it to the end of the podcast as a little note or something.
Paul Goldberg: As a little footnote. Yeah.
Jacquelyn Cobb: Yeah.
Paul Goldberg: The answer is…
Jacquelyn Cobb: The results are in just like Karen.
Paul Goldberg: The results are in.
Jacquelyn Cobb: Yeah. But yeah, definitely a lot more to cover, A lot more to come with, like you said, the news feed is just unstoppable in terms of what we have to keep up with and what we’re going to be continuing to write about. But obviously we’ll keep as much tabs on it as we can and get that impact report out as soon as we’re able to. But yeah, lots coming down the pipeline.
Paul Goldberg: But philosophically, I think the thing we must be doing is covering stories other than, so that’s why I really like your story about Brian trying to raise money for LLS and set the record, fundraising record and maybe both, even the time record for the Boston Marathon.
Jacquelyn Cobb: Maybe.
Paul Goldberg: Yeah, no, it’s…
Jacquelyn Cobb: You never know.
Paul Goldberg: Yeah, it’s not really a crapshoot. So it’s not that likely. But the $507,000 is probably within reach.
Jacquelyn Cobb: Also, we have, sorry to interrupt you, but Katie, our fearless leader is giving us the answer in the chat here. It’s $2.57 billion is the numbers, the solving for X.
Paul Goldberg: Oh. Oh, thank you. Thank you, Katie. So that would be for NCI, NCI spends that much?
Jacquelyn Cobb: NCI’s total contracts. If $900 million is 35%, is the 35% cut.
Paul Goldberg: One of the things I cannot figure out for the life of me is what is happening with the Frederick contract, which is enormous. I call people, they don’t call me back.
Jacquelyn Cobb: If anyone has any tips.
Paul Goldberg: Yeah. Yeah.
Jacquelyn Cobb: Call Paul.
Paul Goldberg: Please, please. Actually, that’s brilliant. We can ask people to call in, call anonymously if you wish. Email us, send us documents anonymously to our PO box. I don’t really know. I just would love to find out, because NCI could cut a whole lot of it through Frederick. Would the world be worse off? Probably. It was very important in the Covid research era, and it does a lot of really important things like the RAS initiatives and so forth. So that would add to our damage, excuse me, impact report. But getting back to my point before you derailed my train of thought, last week, we did a piece about Wilmot Cancer Center getting the NCI designation.
Jacquelyn Cobb: Yeah.
Paul Goldberg: And that was wonderful to do. I just think that we really should continue to be writing more about things that are moving forward because you know what? We’re all going to be here. This administration may lose some of its cutting of some of its enthusiasm for making cuts. Maybe even, Congress may get involved at some point. Congress really can’t really get involved until we know what’s going on. So, what’s happened, rather, maybe it can, but it’s not doing it.
And here we really are hoping that Republicans get involved. I think momentum can shift because of what’s going on on Wall Street right now, which is a nosedive of the sort the world hasn’t seen. This is more than, it’s about a century ago. Something similar happened almost a century ago. It was Smoot-Hawley, although some people say that the 1908, I think tariffs were roughly at this level. Who knows.
Jacquelyn Cobb: Really? Interesting. Have to do some history research.
Paul Goldberg: Yeah. Well, we are probably not going to become historians and economists on the fly, but we do see what’s happening and it’s going to be very interesting. Continue to cover. It’s a good time to be a journalist, I think.
Jacquelyn Cobb: As always. As always. Well, thank you so much, Paul. Is there anything else you want to cover before we sign off?
Paul Goldberg: All is good.
Jacquelyn Cobb: All is as good as it can be.
Paul Goldberg: All is good. Looking forward to next week, so thank you.
Jacquelyn Cobb: Yeah. Tune in next week. Thanks so much.
Paul Goldberg: Thank you everyone.
Jacquelyn Cobb: Thank you for joining us on The Cancer Letter Podcast, where we explore the stories shaping the future of oncology. For more in-depth reporting and analysis, visit us at cancerletter.com with over 200 site license subscriptions, you may already have access through your workplace. If you found this episode valuable, don’t forget to subscribe, rate and share. Together, we’ll keep the conversation going.
Paul Goldberg: Until next time, stay informed. Stay engaged, and thank you for listening.
