A new non-profit advocacy organization, New Cures for Cancers, recently announced its launch and the opening of its website. The mission of the organization is to give cancer patients and their families and friends a podium to tell their stories and to demand judicial and legislative advocacy to motivate new diagnostics, personalized medicines, and drugs to treat cancer.
One goal of the organization is to change the law currently applied by the U.S. Supreme Court that has caused the invalidation of every patent on personalized diagnostics since 2012. Without patent protection for their investments, companies will not be interested in the personalized diagnostics field.
Another goal is to change the U.S. Supreme Court case law that isolated natural products are not eligible for patent protection, because isolated natural products have played a major role in extending and saving the lives of cancer patients. Newer drugs such as checkpoint inhibitors and cell therapy are typically used in addition to or as a second line therapy to conventional chemotherapy, which means that the public should not lose sight that improved chemotherapies, including those based on natural products, are still needed.
A third goal is to counterbalance the narrative of the ACLU and other organizations that the only goal of pharmaceutical drug advocacy is drug pricing. The price of the drug or the diagnostic doesn't matter if it has not been invented. The major advocacy now ongoing about drug prices and "access to medicine" misses the point: our first goal is to demand laws that motivate new and effective diagnostics, personalized medicines and cancer drugs. The details of marketing and pricing don't come until years later.
Ms. Sherry Knowles founded New Cures for Cancers after promising herself that if she made it through breast cancer, she would do everything possible to help cancer patients and their families. In 2019, the American Cancer Society estimates that 1,762,450 Americans will be newly diagnosed with cancer. The American Cancer Society estimates that 606,800 Americans will die of cancer. Men have a 39.66% chance of developing cancer in their lifetime and women have a 37.65% chance of getting cancer. Only 67% of people who have cancer will survive for 5 years. These cancer patients and their families and friends need a direct vehicle for advocacy to make their voices heard. And they need to be able to break through false narratives and force progress to create new diagnostics, personalized medicines, and drugs.
If you have been touched by cancer, either personally or through a family member or friend, New Cures for Cancers asks that you please go to the group's website and post your story. Given the medical sensitivity of cancer matters, you can add your story with "name withheld" or using only your first name if desired. The goal is to raise the voice in any way you feel comfortable doing so.
