Greg Simon was on his way to visit a friend in San Francisco in 2014 when he called his doctor to get the results of a long-overdue physical. Your cholesterol and PSA tests are fine, his doctor said. But, he added, you have leukemia. The good news — sort of — for Simon, a lawyer…
A bipartisan bill designed to make it easier for the NIH and the FDA to recruit top scientists was introduced in the Senate March 17. The Food and Drug Administration and National Institutes of Health Workforce Authorities Modernization Act is the first bill announced for consideration April 6 when the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and…
Since the FDA unveiled its breakthrough therapy designation in 2012, cancer drugs brought into the program won approval roughly three months faster than other oncology therapies, according to a new study. Nonprofit group Friends of Cancer Research pored over stats from the 29 cancer drugs approved from January 2013 to December 2015. Of the 41%…
The FDA began implementing the breakthrough therapy designation in 2012, following the passage of the Food and Drug Administration Safety and Innovation Act (FDASIA). Through the program, a new drug may be designated as a breakthrough therapy by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) if it is intended to treat a serious or life-threatening disease…
The confirmation fight may have been tough, but the job could be even tougher. Now that the Senate has officially approved Dr. Robert Califf as the new commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, he’ll inherit an agency that is being pushed to approve new medical treatments more quickly without sacrificing safety — and facing…
Days after launching his $1-billion (U.S.) cancer “moonshot” last month, U.S. Vice-President Joe Biden was already grounding his space metaphor. Biden first used the lofty analogy in October, several months after his son’s death from brain cancer. It was deployed again in January, when President Barack Obama tasked Biden with leading the White House’s “cancer moonshot task force.” At…
Sigal: $75 Million Not Enough for FDA Reform 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. The proposal is arguably the most tangible component of Vice President Joe Biden’s National Cancer Moonshot program,…
The Obama administration announced on Monday that it hoped to spend $1 billion to fund a cancer “moonshot” in search of a cure. But in the costly world of biological research, such a sum may be better described as a cancer slingshot, researchers said. “The good news is that the budget is no longer being…
THE WHITE HOUSE Office of the Vice President FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE February 1, 2016 FACT SHEET: Investing in the National Cancer Moonshot During his 2016 State of the Union Address, President Obama called on Vice President Biden to lead a new, national “Moonshot” initiative to eliminate cancer as we know it. Today, the White House…
The White House’s “moon shot” to accelerate the search for a cancer cure has the scientific research community abuzz over the possibilities raised by such a high-profile push. Vice President Joe Biden may announce some specifics as soon as Friday when he visits a cancer center in Philadelphia to kick off the effort outlined in…
