On Veterans Day, the National Cancer Institute (NCI) shared a message from Anthony Letai:
” ‘On Veterans Day, we honor the service and sacrifice of those who have served our country. At NCI, that gratitude must also be reflected in the work we do.
For veterans with cancer, access to clinical trials can mean access to promising new approaches, including precision medicine and immunotherapy. It can also mean contributing to knowledge that will help future patients.
That is the idea behind NAVIGATE, the NCI and U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) Interagency Group to Accelerate Trials Enrollment. This collaboration is designed to make it easier for veterans receiving care through the VA to participate in NCI-supported clinical trials, including studies conducted through the National Clinical Trials Network and the NCI Community Oncology Research Program.
This connects directly to one of my priorities at NCI: reducing unnecessary friction in the clinical trials system. Trials should start faster, enroll faster, complete faster, and answer the questions that matter most for patients. That cannot happen if access depends too much on geography, institutional boundaries, or a patient’s ability to navigate complexity.
To me, NAVIGATE reflects something larger about the future of cancer research. Clinical trials should not be available only to patients who live near certain institutions or know how to navigate a complex system. Trials need to reach patients where they are.
NCI can help build the connective tissue across agencies, health systems, cancer centers, clinicians, researchers, and communities. NAVIGATE is an example of that role in action.
On Veterans Day, I am thinking about veterans not only as people to whom we owe our gratitude, but as patients, families, research participants, and partners in progress.
Cancer research moves forward when access expands. For veterans with cancer, that commitment must be more than an aspiration. It has to be built into the system.’
– Anthony Letai.”
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