Salah-Eddin Al-Batran, Director Institute of Clinical Research at University Cancer Center Franfkurt, shared on LinkedIn:
“Every day, we are confronted with desperate people with pancreatic cancer who ask us when daraxonrasib will finally become available.
- Trial?
- Early Access Program?
- Import? Approval?
- We hear these words constantly.
They know that their tumor may not give them as much time as manufacturers and healthcare systems need to bring a new drug to those affected.
And this is just one example.
- Because cancer is a race against time and this in many ways. In the individual case, as in the example of daraxonrasib, but also in general.
- Because over the course of my career, I have seen many people die whom we could cure with the therapies we have today.
Cancer is a race against time because I am convinced that one day we will be able to cure cancer. But there is still a long way to go. For our generation, this progress will come too late.
Cancer is a race against time because we need to get ahead of it. Our goal must be to prevent cancer rather than treat it.
Cancer is also a race against time because it is on its way to becoming the leading cause of death.
Politics must take this reality into account.
Innovation must be promoted more consistently. Investment in research, development, and our healthcare system must not become less, but more, much more! We must cut the bureaucracy that is, in some areas, suffocating us, accelerate clinical trials and approval processes, and make health data more usable for research. Prevention and early detection must be a nation wide question.
At the same time, we need more start-ups and more spin-offs, as well as better access to private growth capital. Public-private partnerships and more performance-oriented funding must massively accelerate the translation of scientific findings into clinical practice.
We need to move faster than cancer.”