Biden touts cancer moonshot as new ‘national purpose’
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President Joe Biden today detailed two new initiatives related to his administration’s cancer moonshot.
Biden announced the appointment of Renee Wegrzyn, PhD, as inaugural director of the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H), formed to drive biomedical innovation. The agency’s research portfolio and budget will focus on developing capabilities to prevent, detect and treat cancer, Alzheimer’s disease, diabetes and other complex diseases.
Wegrzyn is vice president of business development at Ginkgo Bioworks and head of innovation at Concentric by Ginkgo. She has focused on applying synthetic biology to outpace infectious diseases through vaccine innovation, biomanufacturing and biosurveillance of pathogens.
She previously served as program manager in the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency’s biological technologies office. She also has worked for the Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity.
Under Wegrzyn’s leadership, ARPA-H “will emerge as a new and exciting member of America’s biomedical ecosystem,” Biden said.
“Republicans, independents and Democrats in Congress came together and invested $1 billion initially to launch ARPA-H,” Biden said. “Imagine the possibilities — vaccines that can prevent cancer, molecular zip codes that can deliver drugs and gene therapy precisely to the right tissue, a simple blood test during an annual physical that can detect cancer early when the chances of cure are best, getting a simple shot instead of grueling [chemotherapy], or getting pill from a local pharmacy instead of invasive treatment and a long hospital stay. These are just a few of the ideas to illustrate the amazing potential of ARPA-H.”
Biden also signed an executive order to establish a National Biotechnology and Biomanufacturing Initiative, intended to ensure cutting-edge technologies needed to end cancer and other innovations will be developed and manufactured in the United States.
The initiative is intended to drive research, increase the diversity of domestic biomanufacturing capacity, streamline regulation and expand market opportunities for bio-based products through federal programs, according to a White House statement.
Former President Barack Obama announced the launch of the national cancer moonshot initiative during his State of the Union address in January 2016. He asked then Vice President Biden — whose son, Beau, died of glioblastoma multiforme the prior summer — to lead the effort.
Earlier this year, Biden announced a series of efforts intended to “reignite” the moonshot with the goal of reducing the cancer death rate by at least 50% within 25 years.
Today — the 60th anniversary of President John F. Kennedy’s 1962 speech in which he outlined his goals for the nation’s space effort — Biden called on Americans to unite for a new “national purpose” and join the effort to “end cancer as we know it.”
During remarks at John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum in Boston, he characterized the moonshot as “bold, ambitious and ... completely doable.”
He highlighted actions his administration has taken over the past several months as part of the moonshot.
Biden touted provisions in the Inflation Reduction Act that cap out-of-pocket prescription drug costs at $2,000 per year for Medicare beneficiaries, potentially saving people with cancer several thousand dollars per year.
He highlighted an NCI-launched national trial aimed to identify blood tests that effectively can detect one or more cancers, potentially allowing for development of new, less invasive early detection tools.
He also discussed the Cancer Moonshot Scholars Program, which will provide grants for innovative cancer research while aiming to ensure the research workforce is more representative of the US population.
Biden also identified areas where considerable work remains, such as the need to increase early detection; address inequities in care, and help patients and their families navigate the cancer care system more easily. He also reiterated his call for more data-sharing within the scientific community.
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