Healio announces first Disruptive Innovators in Hem/Onc

CHICAGO — During the ASCO Annual Meeting, Healio honored our inaugural Healio Disruptive Innovators in hematology/oncology.

Edward S. Kim, MD, FACP, FASCO, and Shikha Jain, MD FACP, hosted the event in which Healio recognized eight awardees who changed the face of hematology/oncology and pushed the status quo toward the betterment of the field in different areas.

We believe the Healio Disruptive Innovators represent the revolutionary mindset of Healio and HemOnc Today, which disrupted our consumption of information.

The Healio Social Media Influencer

This award goes to a health care professional who makes a positive impact on social media (Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, etc.) and leads continued innovation in use of new platforms. The awardee regularly is listed among the top influencers while attending ASCO, ASH, etc. and acts as a trusted resource for his or her peers amid the din of social media.

Mark A. Lewis, MD, @marklewismd

Lewis was an early adopter of social media — joining Twitter a decade ago on his first day as faculty at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center — and amassed a following of both physicians and nonphysicians alike as he moved from self-proclaimed lurker to live Tweeting his own Whipple procedure.

“It was once seen as frivolous to engage in conversations online, but now there is a critical mass of oncologists who are well-respected with whom anyone can engage online,” Lewis said during an interview with HemOnc Today. “Everyone can benefit from social media, and it is a platform that encourages dialogue. A rising tide lifts all boats — with progress and better understanding, social media has become an effective way to share information in parallel with the peer-reviewed literature.”

In addition to furthering the professional discussion via social media, Lewis brings a new level of empathy to his nonphysician audience due to his personal experiences.

As he told Jain during an episode of Oncology Overdrive, “The whole time I’ve been in our field, literally from day 1, I have also been a patient.”

His perspective as an MEN1 mutation carrier gives other oncologists a chance to see a whole new side of both a colleague and a patient.

The Healio NextGen Disruptor

This award goes to an up-and-coming physician who is already disrupting the status quo in the field, whether through new techniques, new thoughts, questioning methods or breakthrough research. The awardee consistently comes to mind when we discuss “the next big thing.”

Petros Grivas, MD, PhD

Grivas chose to come to the United States after completing medical school in his native Greece. Since making that move, Grivas completed residencies and fellowships and pursued his passion for patient care in genitourinary cancers.

He currently serves as the clinical director for the genitourinary cancers program at UW Medicine, along with his roles as associate professor at University of Washington and Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center. In recent years, Grivas played a pivotal role in trials that led to FDA approval of the first immunotherapy in bladder/urothelial cancers.

“It’s really exciting to see the emerging data across tumor types — particularly in the field of urothelial cancer, where we have a lot of genomic data and biomarker data that hopefully will find their way into clinical practice,” Grivas told HemOnc Today in 2019.

And through his dedication to research along with patient care, Grivas is making that happen.

Clinical Innovation Award

This award goes to a physician or institution that changed the face of hematology/oncology practice. The awardee is seen as an example of how patient care can be improved through changes in administration, technique or the delivery of value-based care.

AccessHope

When considering what patients really need and how best to help them at an institutional level, one institution took new steps to partner with companies in their areas to offer even greater insight into cancer care and improved clinical outcomes.

AccessHope, created by City of Hope in 2020, partners with U.S.-based employers to provide employees with cancer information and expert clinical decision support.

“There have been incredible advances in oncology and, because of that, it has become really difficult — if not impossible — to stay on top of all of these advances, particularly as a general oncologist,” H. Jack West, MD, medical director of AccessHope, told Healio.

Through AccessHope, subspecialists provide expert perspective and asynchronous review of medical records, work-up and treatment options. This information can be shared with and used by the patient’s local medical team.

“We are responding by making AccessHope part of a growing network with foundational partners joining in to offer a deep bench of expertise and subspecialists,” West told Healio. “[The goal is to] optimize care for patients without any expectation of them leaving home for it. They can get their best care close to home, informed by subspecialty expertise.”

Woman Disruptor of the Year

This award goes to a woman in the field who emerged as a leader and an example to younger women of how a successful career can unfold. The awardee may have a career of positive disruption or more recent advancements through which she has made a positive impact within the specialty.

Stephanie L. Graff, MD, FACP

Graff, who serves on Healio’s Women in Oncology Peer Perspective Board, made big moves this year in her career and for the oncology community.

Graff recently moved to Lifespan Cancer Institute at Brown University where she is taking on a more academic role than in the past, while still being involved in patient care.

Highlights of her career so far include work as a principal investigator on trials that resulted in new approvals — like Impassion130, which led to the first FDA approval of a targeted therapy and an immunotherapy for breast cancer — and being part of the ASCO Leadership Development Program, during which she worked with a team on a professionalism initiative.

This year, Graff gave talks on collaborating with community providers for program success and how Implicit Bias impacts our teams and our patients. Her published work this year included data on sexual harassment in the oncology workplace.

She is committed to creating a culture of inclusion and equity in medicine; driving and designing clinical research that better represents the faces of persons at risk and/or diagnosed with cancer; and continuing to improve access to care.

“Change is always good,” Graff told Healio. “If it feels easy or too accessible, maybe it’s not enough of a challenge.”

For women in oncology considering career moves, she said that “doors are always open.”

“Women in general can sell themselves short and think opportunities are out of their reach,” she said. “I would encourage them to think bigger of themselves and to look for opportunities that will be a challenge and cause them to step into something that will present opportunities for growth.”

Health Equity Award

This award goes to a physician who has made meaningful change to overcome the social determinants of health in hematology/oncology. The awardee is seen a model of how identifying and addressing social determinants of health can improve patient care.

Narjust Duma, MD

Duma made waves during the pandemic not only by leading a lab focused on social justice, but by collaborating with Gladys Rodriguez, MD, to form ASCO’s first Young Investigators Award for Latinas.

“The first thing to do is become an advocate for equity,” Duma said. “What this means is that actions need to happen. Bring that person, that Latina, to the table.”

Once at the table, Duma recognizes that there is more to be done to retain and promote diversity and equity within the oncology field as providers and in patient care. As associate director of Center for Cancer Equity and Engagement at Dana-Farber/Harvard Cancer Center, she said her goal is to develop programs to improve access for minorities to the cancer center and clinical trials and develop long-lasting relationships with the Latinx community in Boston.

She developed the Duma Lab, a team she leads with a focus on social justice in medicine and lung cancer in women.

“Our lab’s nickname is the Social Justice League,” she said. “The majority of the work is on social justice because there are so many inequalities in cancer care and for women in medicine in general. We focus on finding interventions to address those inequalities and move the field forward.”

The Healio Patient Voice

This award goes to a physician advocate who moved the needle in public discussions with patients and patient groups, improving communication between patients and providers and using physician and/or personal experience to push legislative or regulatory action (drug approvals, insurance coverage, etc.).

Fumiko Chino, MD

Motivated by personal experience in supporting a spouse with cancer and ultimately shouldering the medical debt even after his passing, Chino uses research to spotlight the high costs of cancer care. She recently analyzed how parking fees add to the financial toxicity of cancer care.

“When my husband was treated for cancer, we paid over $15 a day for parking,” Chino told Healio. “These costs were just a small fraction of our total costs for his care, but they seemed unusually cruel. I felt like we were being nickeled-and-dimed when we were at our most vulnerable.”

Chimo puts her work into action by participating in advocacy days for organizations such as ASTRO, visiting with government representatives to explain the pitfalls of policy such as prior authorization and how they can better the lives of patients with cancer.

Her recently awarded grant through the Radiation Oncology Institute will allow her to conduct the first prospective study collecting real out-of-pocket cost data for patients receiving radiation therapy.

The Healio Lifetime Disruptor

This award goes to a hematologist-oncologist who consistently pushed their field forward through innovative treatments, practice management, patient care or research. The awardee is seen as a leader in his or her subspecialty whose contributions to the field garner recognition of incoming physicians.

Lori J. Pierce, MD, FASTRO, FASCO

Since entering the field of oncology, Pierce continuously pushed herself and her career to new heights. From senior investigator at National Cancer Institute just out of residency to president of ASCO, Pierce shines as an example to so many others in the field.

Pierce has published over 200 manuscripts and book chapters, received numerous awards from renowned organizations such as the European Society of Therapeutic Radiology and Oncology travel award, the American Medical Association Women Physician Mentor Award, the American Association for Women Radiologists’ Marie Curie Award, the Conquer Cancer Foundation Endowed Women Who Conquer Cancer Mentorship Award, a Susan G. Komen for the Cure Scholar, the Association of Community Cancer Centers Annual Achievement Award and the American Society for Radiation Oncology Gold Medal Award.

And now the Healio Lifetime Disruptor Award.

Pierce continues to work toward better patient care and equity within oncology.

“Achieving health equity has been a longstanding personal commitment for me. This focus includes working to achieve equity in precision cancer care so that all our patients have the best outcome for their disease,” she said.

The Healio Industry Breakthrough Award

This award goes to a product that stands out as a major disruption to the practice of hematology/oncology. The awardee will have been acknowledged in practice guidelines and enthusiastically integrated into practice.

Pembrolizumab (Keytruda, Merck)

Since its first approval in 2014 for advanced melanoma, Merck’s anti-PD-1 therapy Keytruda (pembrolizumab) has shown its transformative impact on the treatment of cancer. The immunotherapy is now approved across 16 different types of cancer and holds more than 30 indications, including two that are tumor-agnostic.

Even amid the disruptions of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, Keytruda remained a disruptive innovator. In just the last 2 years, it gained or expanded approvals in endometrial cancer, melanoma, renal cell carcinoma, cervical cancer, triple-negative breast cancer, squamous cell carcinoma, gastric cancer, esophageal cancer, Hodgkin lymphoma and colorectal cancer.

On one recent study for the treatment of clear-cell renal cell carcinoma, ASCO’s chief medical officer and executive vice president Julie R. Gralow, MD, FACP, FASCO, said, “Despite surgery, recurrence is common ... (with) limited curative treatment options for patients. Given the success of pembrolizumab in the KEYNOTE-564 trial, this population may soon have a new standard of care.”

It’s a sentiment echoed frequently in conversations around Keytruda and caring for so many other patients with difficult-to-treat types of cancer, pushing Keytruda forward as our Industry Breakthrough winner.