Late last month, Vice President Joe Biden announced additions and changes to the Cancer Moonshot Task Force initiative. These include, but is not limited to, the National Cancer Institute (NCI) collaborating with 20–30 pharmaceutical and biotechnology firms to accelerate researchers’ access to data, “investigational agents” and approved drugs, with the first agents estimated to be available for research by the end of 2016; more encouragement for cancer patients to participate in clinical trials to expedite medical advancements in the field; a partnership between the DOE and NCI for advancements in precision oncology through supercomputing; the creation of an open access genomic database for shared R&D analysis; public-private partnerships, such as the NIH partnering with 12 biopharmaceutical companies to form the Partnership for Accelerating Cancer Therapies, which will fund pre-competitive cancer research, and the DOE and NCI partnering with GlaxoSmithKline for accelerating drug discovery; and a partnership with Cancer Research UK for real-time sharing of data and experiments.

Source: The White House