Cancer studies to continue, ex-'moonshot' leader says in Little Rock speech

The former leader of the federal cancer "moonshot" initiative said Monday that the effort accelerated progress on research that will continue under the administration of President Donald Trump.

During a speech at the Clinton School of Public Service in Little Rock, Blytheville native Greg Simon noted that the Republican-controlled Congress in December allocated $1.8 billion for cancer research through 2023.

The part of the law allocating the money was named the "Beau Biden Cancer Moonshot" in honor of former Vice President Joe Biden's son, who died of a brain tumor in 2015.

"We've got career people doing it with money they already had for a mission you cannot argue with," Simon said. "If anybody came in and said, 'Stop working on cancer and making things faster, better, cheaper,' I hope somebody would just drag them out like a passenger on United Airlines."

The former vice president appointed Simon, a leukemia survivor, in March 2016 to lead the White House's Cancer Moonshot Task Force, which was made up of the directors of 20 federal agencies and assigned to find ways to speed up and better coordinate research.

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Simon said the effort spurred collaborations among the agencies and led to new programs.

For instance, the National Cancer Institute created trials.cancer.gov, which helps cancer patients find clinical trials.

"All of a sudden, if you ask the right question, if you get people out of their rhythm, they come up with new stuff," Simon said.

A graduate of the University of Arkansas, Simon is now director of the Biden Cancer Initiative, which he said is focused on goals such as increasing communication among researchers and making cancer drugs more affordable.

The former drug company executive was chief domestic policy adviser to Vice President Al Gore from 1993 to 1997 and helped start FasterCures, an arm of the Milken Institute that aims to speed up medical research.

Michael Keck, government relations director for the American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network's Arkansas chapter, said the "moonshot" initiative focused public attention on cancer.

This year, he noted, Arkansas legislators passed a law prohibiting insurance companies from providing less coverage for chemotherapy when the medicine is administered through a pill instead of intravenously.

Another law will create a task force on palliative care, which provides relief from the symptoms of chronic or terminal illnesses.

Before the speech, Simon visited the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences for a briefing on its cancer research initiatives.

UAMS spokesman Leslie Taylor said the topics included the National Cancer Institute's Cancer Imaging Archive, which has been housed on the campus since 2015, the university's participation in data sharing programs, and its research into cancer vaccines.

Metro on 04/25/2017

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