Greg Simon’s Cancer Rx Includes A Better White House Rallying Call

In 2014, Washington, D.C. insider Greg Simon held out for four days to get the results of tests to detect cancer and didn’t want to wait any longer. He called his doctor himself. “I’m glad you called,” Simon recalls the doctor saying. “You have leukemia.”

“That’s not the way most people would like to find out — over a phone call that they had to make to their own doctor,” Simon says.

On the day his cancer was declared in remission two years later, Simon unexpectedly was offered a job where he could make a big impact on the way cancer is fought nationally. Then Vice President Joe Biden invited him to become the inaugural executive director of the White House Cancer Moonshot, driving policy to accelerate cures for cancer across a newly formed task force and 20 cabinet and sub-cabinet offices.

The long-time government official and businessman spoke bluntly about what happened next – and the changes he believes are needed today to fight the deadly scourge — at the online Forbes China Healthcare Summit on Friday.

“I’ve said in every speech I’ve given since I left the White House that the biggest regret I have is that we didn’t do enough to distribute the benefits of our miraculous research… to all people equally,” Simon said. He also criticized a lack of access and global cooperation in clinical trials of new, potentially lifesaving drugs.

And for the first time, Simon suggested that now President Biden, who “reignited” the Cancer Moonshot program at the White House in February this year, give it new name that suggests more global scope. “I hope all of us can do whatever we can to make this a reality — that the Cancer Moonshot becomes the Human Moonshot, and we do all we can to spread it all over the world,” Simon said.

A lawyer by training, Simon, 70, entered politics by working in Congress and later with then Vice President Al Gore on domestic policy. His healthcare industry experience includes a position as senior vice president for worldwide policy and public engagement at Pfizer and as co-founder of FasterCures (with Michael Milken) and the Melanoma Research Alliance. Today, he is a consultant, public speaker, co-founder of the IMX Health Exchange and the CEO of the Intelligent Medicine Acquisition Corp.

The first Biden-led White House Cancer Moonshot “tried to do a lot of things” in the short nine months from the date it was announced until the end of the Obama administration. A Blue-Ribbon Panel put together a proposal for 10 different areas that was integrated into the National Cancer Institute and received $1.8 billion of Congressional funding in the last days of Obama’s D.C. tenure, Simon noted. “We got agencies to talk to each other for the first time,” Simon said, noting $4 million of support from the Veterans Administration, or VA, to the Department of Energy to build a data network able to handle the records from the world’s largest hospitals; the VA also went on to team up with the National Cancer Institute to help veterans participate in potentially life-saving drug trials.

In addition, NASA for the first time used its radiation laboratories to help the National Cancer Institute; the Commerce Department accelerated patent reviews without charge for cancer treatments. As vice president, Biden traveled to a proteomics conference in Dublin and also joined a cancer conference at the Vatican as part of an international push that attracted individuals ranging from caregivers to mathematicians. “The first Moonshot got a lot of things done under the radar that the public may not see, but the people who were helped saw it,” Simon said.

Simon, however, has greater expectations for the latest Cancer Moonshot announced in February. “Unlike the original (1960s space) Moonshot, which was a spectator sport, this Moonshot is not a spectator sport. It is about being involved.” Leading the effort is Simon’s former deputy, Danielle Carnival, who will have two to three years to move markers laid out back in 2016 further down the field.

One breakthrough this week: the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy announced a requirement that all federally funded cancer research be published and shared in open journals rather than put behind paywalls that charge for access. “We’ve been trying to do this for 20 years. And people say, ‘But what about the publication model?’” Simon asked. “And I say, ‘What about it? That is easier to fix than people with cancer.’ So, let’s keep our eye on the ball. The ball is people.”

Social equity in access to cancer treatment will improve only if it becomes a political priority nationally, he said. “And the only way that is going to happen is for us all to make it a priority. We cannot continue to come up with therapies to cure people, but only the wealthy or the well insured can get (them). We have to have social justice as a critical, core element of everything we do,” he said.

“I personally can’t live with the idea that someone with my cancer who happens to be of a different race would not get the same care and treatment (as me). I can’t bear the thought that my sister survived breast cancer but a black woman has a far less chance of surviving breast cancer. None of us should live with that. All of us should fight for social justice in the distribution of the miraculous rewards of research that we have spent billions on and (on which) we have dedicated an army of brilliant people who are willing to sacrifice a lot of things to help everybody else.”

Simon also encouraged an overhaul of regulations that cover clinical drug trials with international partners. “We have got to get out of the 1950s view of clinical trends. Clinical trials are no longer just experiments. They are treatments. It used to be unethical to call them treatment. We’re along past that,” Simon said.

“I have met so many people in their twenties who were in hospice until they found a clinical trial that brought them back to life. We have to add regulatory organization, we have to have trust, (and) we have to have confidence in each other’s data. And the new Moonshot is capable of doing that.”

“When we have historical data about what works, we can create new trials that are adaptive, (and) that move people through the possible therapies much more quickly than we do in the old system. We have got to take these pearls that we have put them in a necklace and tighten them up,” he said. “We can no longer afford to spend a year between phase two and phase three, or to spend six years even getting to a clinical trial with artificial Intelligence and machine learning. There is no excuse for us to continue to use the basically a pen and paper of the last 50 years.”

That, in turn, would help with the public recognition that fighting cancer is a global need – not just close to home, he said. “Why are we here on this crust above a molten core, spinning around the star that is so hot?” Simon asked. “We can’t even move a degree closer to it and survive. We’re here to love each other, because life itself is so precious. When cancer wins, the only thing we as humans can do is to love each other.”

“That is why I’d like to change the Cancer Moonshot name to the Human Moonshot. How we treat other people defines our view of humanity. And as a Human Moonshot, it is my great hope that we will learn how to bring all of these wonderful therapies to people we will never meet, to people who don’t look like us (and to) people we’ve been trained to think of as our enemies,” Simon said. “That is my goal. That is my hope — that we can turn the Human Moonshot into a true global effort to show people how we can care for each other and love each other.”

“How we cherish” each other with today’s remarkable science, Simon concluded, “will define our species” in the larger scope of history.

Other event speakers included: Steve Forbes, Chairman and Editor-in-Chief, Forbes; Dr. Lisa DeAngelis, Chief Medical Officer, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center; Hon. Kevin Rudd, President and CEO, Asia Society, 26^th Prime Minister of Australia; Dr. Wu Yi-Long, President, Chinese Thoracic Oncology Group; Dr. Nancy Y. Lee, Chief and Vice Chair, Radiation Oncology, MSK; Dr. Bob T. Li, Physician Ambassador to China and Asia-Pacific, MSK; and Dr. Louis J. DeGennaro, President and CEO, Leukemia & Lymphoma Society.

In addition, Dr. Tyler Jacks, President, Break Through Cancer; Prof. Andrew W. Lo, Professor of Finance, MIT; Kenneth Manotti, Senior Vice President and Chief Development Officer, MSK; Dr. Yinghua Wang, Senior Regulatory Health Project Manager, Oncology Center of Excellence, FDA; Rose Gao, Head of Novartis China Global Drug Development, Novartis; Dr. Eduard Gasal, President, Innovent USA; Dr. Vincent Chia, Managing Director, Raffles China Healthcare, Raffles Medical Group; and Dr. Yibing Shan, Managing Director, Antidote Foundation for the Cure of Cancer; I also spoke.

See related posts:

Meet The Scientist Leading Coordinating President Biden’s New Cancer Moonshot

“Why Is Cancer Less Important To Cure Faster Than Covid?”: Cancer Moonshot Pathways

Social Justice, Outreach, Global Collaboration: Cancer Moonshot Pathways

Break Through Barriers To Drive Progress: Cancer Moonshot Pathways

Biden Deserves Credit For Taking On Cancer: Cancer Moonshot Pathways

Accelerate Cures Through International Collaboration In Clinical Trials: Cancer Moonshot Pathways

U.S. Research Grants Should Require Data Sharing: Cancer Moonshot Pathways

Incentivize The Fight Against Cancer That Affects Kids: Cancer Moonshot Pathways

Innovative Solutions To Cancer Require Innovative Finance: Cancer Moonshot Pathways

Close The Gap Between Discovery Research And Patient Care: Cancer Moonshot Pathways

@rflannerychina