Biden urges more sharing of cancer studies

Vice President Joe Biden embraces comedian Carol Burnett after she introduced him Wednesday at the Cancer Moonshot Summit at Howard University in Washington.
Vice President Joe Biden embraces comedian Carol Burnett after she introduced him Wednesday at the Cancer Moonshot Summit at Howard University in Washington.

WASHINGTON -- Vice President Joe Biden threatened Wednesday to pull federal funding for cancer studies that fail to publicly disclose their results, putting pressure on researchers, clinicians and drug companies to speed up progress toward cancer cures.

RELATED ARTICLE

http://www.arkansas…">Cancer focus of UAMS group

Hosting a meeting in Washington, Biden said the culture in the cancer-research field is stifling progress and that he said was "committed to doing everything" in his power to change that culture. He cited concerns that prominent medical institutions that receive millions in taxpayer dollars are flouting a federal rule that says they must submit their results to a publicly accessible database within a year.

"Doc, I'm going to find out if it's true, and if it's true, I'm going to cut funding," Biden said. "That's a promise."

For months, Biden has been imploring cancer researchers to share their data and trial results more freely so scientists can build on the progress of others and more readily identify treatments that might work for individual patients. His ultimatum at Wednesday's event was the first time Biden has suggested that failure to heed his call could lead to the termination of National Institutes of Health grants.

There's no mechanism in place to enforce the mandate that trial results be quickly posted to www.clinicaltrials.gov, where patients and their doctors can identify treatments that have been effective for other patients. President Barack Obama's administration is developing a rule to crack down on those who ignore the requirement, the White House said.

At Wednesday's meeting, Biden said the world was "on the cusp of breakthroughs." But he suggested that the cancer-fighting community was essentially standing in its own way. He called out drug companies for unnecessary price increases and major research hospitals for insufficient collaboration.

"It's not anybody's fault, but we've got to fix it," Biden said.

Cancer researchers and their institutions have pushed back on those critiques, arguing they already share reams of data and partner frequently with each other and the government. They've also cited major hurdles imposed by federal agencies that make it nearly impossible to develop treatments quickly and get them approved for patients -- a concern that Biden acknowledged.

For Biden, the conference comes as time is running out to make good on his pledge to use his time in office to raise the rate of progress toward a cure. Biden had hoped to dramatically boost government activity on cancer, but his campaign has run up against political and logistical obstacles.

To help Biden's effort, Obama asked Congress for $1 billion over two budget years for research. Only a fraction has been approved. So Biden's focus has shifted to trying to highlight and streamline private and nonprofit research efforts.

The Energy Department and the National Cancer Institute announced new programs to analyze cancer data with supercomputers, plus another computing program that will work with drugmaker GlaxoSmithKline to speed up drug development. IBM unveiled plans to donate its Watson supercomputing technology to help the Veterans Affairs Department ramp up its precision medicine program by sequencing the genomics of tumors for 10,000 patients over two years.

"Those are the types of partnerships that really start to push things forward," IBM Watson Health Vice President Steve Harvey said. "We kind of need each other in this journey."

Biden on Wednesday was mindful of the concern that he's pursuing a mission to address an issue that's affected his family. Biden declared the cancer effort last year after his son, former Delaware Attorney General Beau Biden, died of brain cancer.

"This isn't about him; it's not about a single person. It's about us," Biden said.

A Section on 06/30/2016

Upcoming Events