WASHINGTON, DC January 30, 2015 The president 's Precision Medicine Initiative is an important investment in improving our understanding of the causes of and potential therapies for cancer - a disease that kills more than 1,600 people in America each day.
The proposal would dedicate a combined $215 million for the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) to spur research, development and innovation that moves away from a one-size-fits-many approach to treating disease toward providing the right treatment for the right patient at the right time. Of that amount, the National Cancer Institute (NCI) would receive $70 million dedicated to identifying the genomic drivers of certain types of cancer and developing more effective treatments for these diesases.
Thanks to past federal investment in research, our understanding of cancer has evolved from a diagnosis by the body site where a tumor is found to the discovery that there are more than 200 types of cancer, categorized by different genetic mutations. Precision medicine is about matching treatments to the specific genetic or molecular makeup of a person 's disease.
Our increasing understanding of cancer genetics has helped to provide a roadmap for the development of targeted therapies for some types of cancers like lung, breast and melanoma. But, we have only begun to scratch the surface of the potential for new targeted therapies and robust investment is needed to build knowledge and bring more informed diagnostic tools and therapies to the patient 's bedside.
Cancer costs our economy nearly $216 billion in combined direct and indirect medical costs each year. The president 's proposal is a smart investment and we call on Congress to make funding for the Precision Medicine Initiative and cancer research broadly a top priority in the FY16 budget.
ACS CAN, the nonprofit, nonpartisan advocacy affiliate of the American Cancer Society, supports evidence-based policy and legislative solutions designed to eliminate cancer as a major health problem.æ ACS CAN works to encourage elected officials and candidates to make cancer a top national priority. ACS CAN gives ordinary people extraordinary power to fight cancer with the training and tools they need to make their voices heard. For more information, visit www.fightcancer.org.
FOR MORE INFORMATION, CONTACT:
Alissa Crispino or Steven Weiss
American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network
Phone: (202) 661-5772 or (202) 661-5711
Email: [email protected] or [email protected]
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