Biden touts ‘Cancer Moonshot’ on JFK speech anniversary in Boston

BOSTON, Sept 12 (Reuters) – President Joe Biden signed orders on Monday to push extra authorities {dollars} to the U.S. biotechnology business, as he promoted his initiative to create new therapies and minimize the dying fee from most cancers.
Most cancers “doesn’t care for those who’re Republican or Democrat,” Biden mentioned on the John F. Kennedy Library in Boston, on the sixtieth anniversary of JFK’s ‘Moonshot’ speech that urged Individuals to steer within the exploration of house.

Biden drew a parallel between the previous president’s objective of reaching the moon and his personal objective of chopping most cancers dying charges in half within the subsequent 25 years. learn extra

“Right this moment I am setting a long run objective for the Most cancers Moonshot – to rally American ingenuity, we have interaction like we did to achieve the moon, however really treatment cancers…as soon as and for all,” Biden mentioned.

He mentioned analysis might spark medical breakthroughs, together with a vaccine to forestall most cancers, or a blood take a look at that would detect most cancers in an annual bodily.

The manager order permits the federal authorities to direct funding for the usage of microbes and different biologically derived sources to make new meals, fertilizers and seeds, in addition to making mining operations extra environment friendly, administration officers mentioned.

The order “directs the federal authorities to make sure biotechnologies invented in the USA of America are made in the USA of America,” Biden mentioned.

Biomanufacturing has been used to generate most cancers therapies, together with these derived from crops or utilizing re-engineered immune cells.

The White Home didn’t present any specifics on how a lot cash can be accessible, the place it could come from or how it could be allotted. Additional particulars are anticipated at a White Home summit on the subject Wednesday.

The U.S. federal authorities is already a supply of funds to biotechnology analysis and growth (R&D) via the Nationwide Institute of Well being, the U.S. Division of Agriculture and different businesses. General U.S. funding for R&D has dropped as a share of gross home product since a peak within the Fifties, a pattern Biden has pledged to reverse.

Potential functions vary from the biodiesel fuels made by Renewable Power Group to the COVID-19 vaccines made by Pfizer-BioNTech (PFE.N), (22UAy.DE) or the genetically modified seeds made by Corteva Inc (CTVA.N).

Biden additionally named Dr. Renee Wegrzyn, a longtime science adviser and who most just lately served on the biotech firm Ginkgo Bioworks Holdings Inc, (DNA.N) as the primary director of the Superior Analysis Tasks Company for Well being, a U.S. government-run biomedical analysis group.

Biden’s son Beau died of mind most cancers in 2015 at age 46, one thing the president has mentioned helps inform his ardour for the venture.

Reporting by Trevor Hunnicutt and Nandita Bose; Modifying by Heather Timmons and Aurora Ellis

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