Operation Warp Speed has forever changed the landscape of drug approvals. This was a federal effort to accelerate the development of the COVID-19 vaccine President Trump
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Working in clinical development and understanding how regulators work, I was initially skeptical about Operation Warp Speed. The ambitious goals, plans and speed at which these companies attempted to develop, produce and deliver new vaccines seemed impossible. But their success proved the model. Operation Warp Speed has shown that collaboration, transparency and generous funding are game changers in creating scientific breakthroughs.
Now the same can happen for cancer treatment. And we’ve never had a president more committed to writing cancer history than Joe Biden
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After the death of his son Beau from glioblastoma in 2015, Biden became the nation’s biggest cancer advocate. In 2016, he stated at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, that he wanted to end “cancer as we know it.” He dedicated the senior year of president Barack Obama
Barack Hussein Obama How Democrats Can Defy Odds In 2022 Biden Is Considering Building That Wall – And Good Thing The White House Is Running The Clock To Beat GOP Attacks MOREchaired the White House Cancer Moonshot program, which aimed to fight cancer by funding bold research. The program’s mission to accelerate breakthroughs and expand the number of treatments available to patients enabled immunotherapy treatments, enhanced disease prevention strategies, and enabled millions of US patients to detect cancer earlier. Biden often cited doubling the pace of progress toward cancer treatment, achieving what would otherwise take a decade in five years. And as a presidential candidate, he declared, “I promise you that if I get elected president, most importantly, you’ll see America change: we’re going to cure cancer.”
Now he can help make that dream come true. Biden is probably the most scientific and results-oriented president to ever serve in office. With his party in power in the House and Senate, Biden could put a lot more fuel into the rocket for cancer research. It is time for his legacy to take the next step and launch “breakthrough surgery for cancer” based on the findings of Operation Warp Speed.
We are on the verge of making cancer exponentially a disease of the past, and Biden has the opportunity to change the future of humanity by making cancer history. Here’s how he can do this:
1) Start an Operation Warp Speed for Cancer
In the race to combat COVID-19, regulators have shortened aging processes and are reviewing the way regulators analyze drug approvals. This allows pharmaceutical companies, the National Institutes of Health and the Food and Drug Administration to work together in unprecedented ways.
The government encouraged involvement in this vital public-private partnership by providing billions of dollars for vaccine research, production and distribution. It will be critical to use this regulatory model to end cancer, especially since cancer treatments are much more difficult to find than a simple vaccine. Cancer is complex. It alters and cheats the body’s immune system.
2) Fund more significant investments in research
In the United States, new cases of cancer are diagnosed every 30 seconds. Every year, more than 1.2 million Americans are diagnosed with cancer, in addition to the 20 million who are already fighting for their lives. The Trump administration’s Operation Warp Speed has spent more than $ 12.4 billion on vaccine research and development. This collaboration between the Ministries of Health and Human Services and Defense was successful thanks to the funding.
Selecting drug candidates that use different mechanisms to stimulate clinical activity against cancer, using artificial intelligence modeling, machine learning, epigenetics and proteomics, requires massive funding. Medicine makers cannot do this on their own, and academic institutions rely heavily on low-paid postdoctoral researchers and grants from philanthropies. Conducting preclinical studies, moving the findings to clinical trials, collecting safety data, and analyzing efficacy requires much more than voluntary participants and goodwill.
New technologies have the potential to unlock breakthroughs, but are costly and large-scale studies are expensive. That’s why Biden should set up “breakthrough cancer surgery” and spend $ 20 billion to accelerate the development of new cancer treatments. It can have a historical and seismic impact by ending cancer for good.
3) Push Americans to Get Screened for Cancer
Because of the coronavirus, people stayed at home, delayed their medical appointments, and did not provide proper care. New cancer screening guidelines advise the public to screen for cancers earlier, but pandemic disruptions prevented the population from coming to their doctor’s appointments in the past year.
Postponing medical treatment is not a good idea. The damage caused by last year’s viral outbreaks on medical research is immeasurable – clinical trials had reduced enrollment, patients had postponed surgeries and biopsies, and unfortunately many patients have postponed treatment.
The National Cancer Institute estimated 1.8 million new cancer cases by 2020 and more than 600,000 cancer deaths in the United States alone. Screening is the testing of people to find cancer cells before it becomes an uncontrollable problem. When cancer is diagnosed early, people often don’t experience any symptoms, but many fear returning to medical services because of the coronavirus.
Finding some cancers early, before symptoms appear, can help reduce the chance of dying from those cancers. Cancers diagnosed at earlier stages are usually easier to treat and sometimes a cure is possible. Significant increases in the number of preventable cancer deaths in America are expected due to diagnostic delays caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Urgent policy interventions are needed, especially to manage the backlog of routine diagnostic services. Americans should feel safe returning to their medical care, being screened for cancer, and receiving treatment. Biden can help with that.
In addition to my professional experience, cancer is personal to me: I lost my grandfather to Glioblastoma, an aggressive brain tumor. When I was 12 my six-year-old cousin became ill with a rare childhood lymphoma. When I was a teenager my mother fought and survived uterine cancer. During the pandemic, I diagnosed my father with a rare cancer of the immune system for which we have no cure yet. That’s why it’s so important to me and I’ve dedicated my career to researching better ways to treat this disease.
There can hardly be a more noble mission than ending cancer, and Biden has the chance to lead this effort. The launch of a new Operation Warp Speed to develop breakthroughs for cancer patients could save millions of lives.
Dr. Leo Nissola is a physician and immunotherapy scientist focused on fighting advanced-stage cancer with the immune system at The Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy. Follow him on Twitter @LeoNissolaMD and @DoctorLeo on Instagram.