Our new president vows to address the pervasive issue of cancer. Over 1.4 million Americans will be diagnosed with cancer this year, joining over 10 million living Americans who have experienced cancer. The medical costs of cancer care were $78 billion in 2008, and the overall economic impact was estimated to be over $200 billion. The current administration plans to double federal funding for cancer research within five years, primarily at NIH and NCI, with a focus on research for rare cancers.
There are two types of rare cancer. The truly rare diseases (e.g., hairy cell leukemia), but also common histological cancer types like breast cancer, with rare molecular subtypes such as triple negative breast cancer which produces a small number of patients. Cancer profiling and customized treatment for individual patients is now clinically realistic. Challenges to the development of tomorrow’s therapies include identifying and connecting the right patients with the right treatments. Today, less than 5% of adult cancer patients participate in clinical trials. There are multiple reasons for this, including reimbursement problems in research funding, a daunting administrative burden, and a growing shortage of clinical researchers. The Obama administration has pledged to increase cancer trial participation to 10% of adult patients. In addition, the NCI Director has been charged to identify the regulatory barriers that prevent the timely completion of successful clinical research.
Pharmatech Oncology has conceptualized a unique solution that identifies patients first (Just-in-Time™, [JIT]), then rapidly connects patients and physicians to appropriate clinical trial opportunities. This differs from the traditional model, which focuses initially on administrative process and secondarily on patient enrollment. The traditional model can be effective for clinical trials in indications with millions of patients, but for rare cancers, it is not as effective
