Trump’s $500 million for childhood cancer? Scientists have ideas how to spend it

[Andy]

Thought there was some interesting points that can be related to the topic of ME research funding (or lack thereof).

1. A promise of $500 million over 10 years was made to what the article calls "a low research priority".
2. The promised money can go towards targets identified by the "cancer moonshot".

Any other cancer where more than three-quarters of patients are cured might seem to be a low research priority — compared to, say, cancers with an approximately 0 percent cure rate, such as adult glioblastoma. But childhood cancers are, well, childhood cancers.

“Today’s overall cure rate of 80 percent means than 1 in 5 children will die of their disease,” said Dr. James Downing, president and CEO of St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis, Tenn. “So there is still a lot of work to be done.”

The pediatric cancer community applauded President Trump’s State of the Union promise of an additional $500 million over the next 10 years to fund research into cures for more childhood cancers. It wasn’t just because scientists generally don’t turn down extra money, and it wasn’t because of the emotional tug of dying children. Instead, experts say there are specific, actionable research questions that the additional funding could help them answer, including in two areas that the “cancer moonshot,” developed by the Obama administration, identified.

3. The promised money will encourage scientists into the field.

An infusion of $50 million a year would therefore represent a roughly 10 percent increase, something Downing calls “a welcome supplement.”

If nothing else, it would send a signal to cancer biologists that their chances of winning National Cancer Institute funding has ticked up. Scientists are sometimes reluctant to jump into pediatric cancer research because, given the high cure rates, “they’re worried that they won’t get a high enough priority score to get funded,” believing that adult cancers with abysmal survival rates will prevail in the grants competition, said Dr. Lee Helman, a former NCI official and pediatric cancer specialist who is now at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles. “A little extra money for research could therefore bring more scientists into the field.”

4. The extra money will make it more likely for pharma to get involved by doing the initial work for them.

Academic researchers, whom Trump’s additional money would likely fund, therefore “have to do more work [on a potential drug] before pharmaceutical companies will pick it up,” Armstrong said. “You have to de-risk it for them, making it as clear as clear can be that drug X has a high likelihood of success.” That, too, obviously takes money.

5. In one opinion, $50 million per year won't make much difference to childhood cancer research but could be used in other ways to get pharma involved.

Trump said the new money he proposed would fund research, but other uses for the $500 million might actually speed the discovery of new therapies even more.

“I don’t think another $50 million a year for more studies will really move the needle,” said John Parker, managing director of Springhood, an early-stage investor in companies focused on children’s health. But putting that money toward tax incentives to induce pharmaceutical companies to work on childhood cancers could accelerate drug discovery, he said, as might “angel tax credits” that let investors write off any losing bets they make on startups with this focus. Both could draw much-needed investment, Parker said, possibly even a multiple of Trump’s $500 million.

https://www.statnews.com/2019/02/08/trump-childhood-cancer-research/