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Biden Cancer Moonshot Announces New Projects Focused on Decreasing Cancer Burden in Africa

NEW YORK – Following a forum convening ten African nations on Monday, the Biden Cancer Moonshot has announced a slate of new actions by both public US bodies and the private sector aimed at expanding access to cancer prevention, detection, and treatment in communities across Africa.

Several of the newly announced efforts are focused on precision medicine, cancer genomics, and advanced diagnostics.

In one, the National Cancer Institute will conduct one of the first cancer immunotherapy clinical trials on the African continent. NCI is committing $6 million and partnering with Roche and investigators in Kenya and Malawi on a trial evaluating the safety and efficacy of Roche's Tecentriq (atezolizumab) for African children, adolescents, and adults with lymphomas caused by Epstein-Barr virus.

NCI has also pledged to award eight grants totaling nearly $24 million to support teams implementing new science in diverse settings, populations, interventions, and cancer types. Another five funding awards will support researchers and healthcare providers in low- and middle-income countries to develop new technologies for diverse settings, populations, and cancer types, through the NCI Affordable Cancer Technologies program.

Another $125,000 has been committed to fund a new collaboration with the International Agency for Research on Cancer and two new cancer surveillance centers in Kenya and South Africa to further strengthen data quality, data sharing, and surveillance research.

Amongst nongovernmental actions, Northwestern University's Center for Global Oncology has pledged $18 million to launch the West Africa-US Cancer Prevention and Control Initiative, which aims to develop and implement evidence-based screening, diagnostic, and treatment tools in West Africa, with a focus on infection-associated cancers.

The Elekta Foundation plans to implement a scalable FAST model (which stands for fast HPV testing, affordable cost per woman, systematic tracking, timely diagnosis and treatment) for cervical cancer screening in collaboration with the Rwanda Ministry of Health. The model is set up to provide more than 850 tests per day at less than $25 per patient.

The University of Miami’s Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center is launching a multicenter study in Nigeria in July 2024 to better understand the drivers of health inequities, identify genetic characteristics specific to cancers in people of African heritage, and determine environmental factors that improve the ongoing effects of medical treatment for women with ovarian cancer.

Moffitt Cancer Center is leading a program called the Partnership to Assess Viral and Immune Landscape Intersections with Oncology for People Living with HIV (PAVILION). The $5.5 million collaboration between Moffitt, Vanderbilt University Medical Center, the German Cancer Research Center, Stellenbosch University, and University of Zimbabwe is focused on expanding research of understudied, virus-associated cancers that disproportionately impact people living with HIV and includes two research projects and a series of pilot projects in Zimbabwe and South Africa.

Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center and Tanzania's Muhimbili University of Health and Allied Sciences are implementing a new point-of-care breast cancer hormone receptor test to provide more timely results that can help oncologists personalize patients' treatment and improve outcomes.

Amongst other efforts, MSK is also sponsoring a first-of-its-kind immunotherapy trial and developing a novel diagnostic test for colorectal cancer patients in Nigeria. In partnership with the African Research Group for Oncology (ARGO) Consortium and University of Alberta, the center is investigating a novel point-of-care urine metabolite test for diagnosing patients with colorectal cancer that could fill gaps as a low-cost, accessible option.