WASHINGTON — In the Obama administration’s final days, the National Cancer Institute is establishing an ambitious new program designed to allow scientists to more quickly access new drugs and compounds for novel research.
One of the last achievements of Vice President Joe Biden’s cancer moonshot initiative before he leaves office, the program was unveiled Wednesday and will begin as an agreement between the institute and six drug companies.
Biden’s “moonshot” is not disimilar to the approach of past politicians with their proclaimed, “war on cancer”. At best it is misguided. While we need drugs to help people live longer, the battle is essentially lost and has been for decades. We are the throwing money at the disease; it looks good, and it feels good but it won’t stop the disease. The practice just fuels the economy by putting money in the hands of companies with cashflow already overflowing. Instead, Put the money in the hands of those struggling to find the CAUSES of cancer. Preventive medicine is always the better route. Microbes, particularly viruses have been found “causitive” yet no BIG money flows into vaccine manufacture (except for HPV which took 70 yrs even though its role in cancer was known). A vaccine against the HERPES group should be a first priority.
Without Novartis on board this will never make it
They need to roster the big players in Oncology and then move it out to the NCI institutions
The institutions will accept any offer as long as it is painless and fast. The 6 out of 46 PharmaCos are a good start now lets see how NCI messes it up
Dr D (surgical oncologist)