New Initiative Aims for “World Free of Cancer by 2050”
A new initiative which aims for “a world free of cancer by 2050” has been launched in the US, stressing the need for more patient-centred innovation and an appreciation of the economic benefits of new cancer drugs.
The Value of Medical Innovation (VOI) group is comprised of patients, researchers, advocacy groups and innovators, spearheaded by the Centre for Medicine in the Public Interest (CMPI). The VOI has released a six-point plan that is designed to speed up innovation through making cancer care “predictive, personalized, preventive and participatory.”
One of the ways VOI plans to do this is by putting patients “in charge of cancer research,” using online patient communities to design clinical trials, test out treatments and provide advice on the measurement of outcomes. The initiative also calls for a move away from “one-size-fits-all research” and towards personalized cancer studies, pointing out that whereas the first human genome took ten years and nearly $1bn to map, genome sequencing today costs under $500 and can be completed in a matter of hours.
VOI is also calling for a drastic reduction in the amount of time it takes to develop new cancer meds, bringing it down from the current 8-10 years to just two years. Their interactive website highlights the fact that cancer drugs currently take the longest time to be approved. It argues that new personalized drugs can be seen as targeting “orphan diseases,” diseases that affect fewer than 200,000 persons in the United States, and that the FDA should exercise the authority it has in these cases to speed up the approval process. The VOI also thinks that legislation should be introduced requiring health plans to cover these new personalized treatments, as “nearly half of all cancer patients are forced to choose between a treatment that could save their lives or the one that's covered by their plan.”
Scott Gottlieb, former deputy commissioner for medical and scientific affairs at the FDA, said at the launch of the initiative in Chicago this week that “the time for personalised medicine has come.” He remarked that the biggest challenge has moved from scientific to regulatory and cost issues. Robert Goldberg, CMPI vice president and founder of VOI, claimed at the launch that “business as usual won’t cut it,” going on to say that “insurance companies, hospitals, drug companies and even the FDA are entrenched in a system that pays them for research and treatment focused on the cancer, not the patient.”
Goldberg argued that there was an economic case for allowing greater access to personalized treatments, as “cancer patients living longer, better lives has added $4.7 trillion to our economy. That's an incredible return for what we've invested.” The VOI claims that since 1990, new cancer meds have led to a doubling of the number of survivors from six million to 13 million, resulting in nearly 49 million life years gained by treatment advances. It also asserts that for every $1 spent on new medicines saves spending on hospitals and doctors by $7, and that “innovative treatments account for only about 1% of total healthcare spending.” Dr. Goldberg ended his speech by saying “many people believe that in the war on cancer we get too little benefit for too much money. We have 49 million reasons to prove them wrong.”