Having recently been appointed the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA’s) point-person on Vice President Joe Biden’s Cancer Moonshot Initiative, Richard Pazdur, MD, the FDA’s acting director of the Oncology Center of Excellence (OCE), blogged about the agency’s efforts to make sure patients and providers know about the progress in cancer prevention and treatment.
“At the core of the OCE’s work–and of the Cancer Moonshot–is taking a new look at what we have been doing in the past so we can operate more efficiently in the future,” Pazdur said. “The OCE will leverage the combined skills of oncologists and scientists with expertise in drugs, biologics, and devices to employ the best and most innovative approaches to bring forth safe new oncology products.”
In an attempt to redesign the process, Pazdur explained that the FDA has shifted its program to better reflect an approach that would “expedite” pathways and allow for access to cancer-treating drugs more rapidly. These reforms were met with great support from the advocacy community, who seek to see advances in the Moonshot Initiative move at a faster pace.
He stressed that collaboration is necessary and believes that the Moonshot will bring together many disparate entities working towards the same goal: finding treatments and cures for cancers.