Vice President Biden Oct. 17 delivered an Executive Report on the status of the Cancer Moonshot to President Obama, which reviews progress during the first year of the initiative and lays out a roadmap for the next five years.
This information was presented in detail in a report from the Cancer Moonshot Task Force, an interagency group chaired by the Vice President. The Task Force identified five strategic goals for the Moonshot: catalyze new scientific breakthroughs, unleash the power of data, accelerate bringing new therapies to patients, strengthen prevention and diagnosis, and improve patient access and care.
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) National Cancer Institute this week also released a final version of the Blue Ribbon Panel recommendations, which detail 10 scientific approaches to speed advancements in cancer research [see Washington Highlights, Sept. 9].
The Task Force report notes in conclusion that the Cancer Moonshot effort “isn’t about scientific research or technology development; it isn’t about computational power or capability; it isn’t about health care records management…(it) is about the entire cancer ecosystem working together to use our resources and tools intelligently and aggressively to catalyze improvements in care and our understanding of cancer.”