Cancer MoonShot 2020 will arm oncologists with new tools

In 2016, more than 1.6 million new cases of cancer will be diagnosed and cancer will kill an estimated 600,000 Americans. The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality estimates that the total cost for cancer care in the United States in 2011 was $88.7 billion. Fifty percent of this cost was for hospital outpatient or doctor office visits, 35% was for inpatient hospital stays, and 11% was for prescription drugs.

“The truth is, cancer is still a mystery; no two cancers are alike, making it nearly impossible to choose the best treatment path for each patient,” says Patrick Soon-Shiong, MD, founder and chief executive officer of NantWorks and founder of the Chan Soon-Shiong Institute of Molecular Medicine, located in Culver City, California. In January 2016, the billionaire launched the Cancer MoonShot 2020 Program in an effort to win the war on cancer. “When a patient is first diagnosed with cancer, they are overwhelmed with a sense of uncertainty. Our goal is to develop personalized immunotherapeutic treatment options and arm oncologists with the necessary tools to combat cancer with certainty.”

The Cancer MoonShot 2020 program brings together stakeholders from pharma, community and academic oncology, as well as government and scientific communities in an effort to accelerate the potential of combination immunotherapy as the next-generation standard of care in cancer patients. The program’s goal is to initiate randomized phase 2 trials in 20,000 patients at all stages of disease in 20 tumor types before 2020, called the Quantum Integrative Lifelong Trial (QUILT). These findings will be used to develop an effective vaccine-based immunotherapy to combat cancer by 2020.

The joint approach provides researchers with necessary testing materials and patients with more opportunities to participate through local facilities and wider insurance coverage. Oncologists receive real-time clinical trial results, and patients have hope for more positive outcomes.

Breaking new ground

SenderAccording to Leonard Sender, MD, medical director, Hyundai Cancer Institute at Children’s Hospital Orange County, Orange, California, and codirector of the Chan Soon-Shiong Institute of Molecular Medicine, “Cancer MoonShot 2020 is the first program to test the hypothesis that the immune system has the ability to defeat cancer.”

Up until recently, he says, major advances in cancer medicine involved targeted therapy, in which a particular drug targeted a change in DNA (the whole genome) and immunotherapy. These treatments were often separated in different silos. “This program will bring both concepts together; multiple partners will conduct testing in real patients, not animals, to see if the combination results in greater cures,” says Sender. “This will be done as quickly as possible by bringing in infrastructure that will allow for rapid adoption of clinical trials in light of governmental regulations.”

LeeImmunotherapy, a form of biologic therapy, is a type of cancer treatment designed to boost the body's natural defenses to fight cancer. “We are using lower-dose chemotherapies in a way that the immune response is maintained,” says John Lee, MD, cancer center director, Chan Soon-Shiong Institute of Molecular Medicine, and surgical oncologist at Sanford Health in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, which is one of the first national and regional self-insured employers to cover next-generation whole genome sequencing and proteomics for various cancers. “Treatments also include immune modulators-both antibodies and small molecule therapy-as well as a natural killer cell therapy.”

 

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