AACR Urges Congress to Safeguard Funding for FDA, Cites 35 Drug Approvals in 2011 as Validation of Agency’s Effectiveness

SAN FRANCISCO — Underscoring the importance of a fully funded U.S. Food and Drug Administration in advancing progress in cancer, the American Association for Cancer Research calls on Congress to support the agency’s budget increase recently approved in the U.S. Senate.

“The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is the vital nexus between discoveries in cancer research and continued improvements in patient care,” said AACR President Judy Garber, M.D., M.P.H. “We need to ensure the FDA has the resources to integrate advances in science and technology into the regulatory process to keep pace with medical product innovation. Patients will be the ones who suffer if the FDA budget falls victim to shortsighted budget cuts.”

The FDA currently operates on annual appropriations of about $2.4 billion. In early November, the Senate passed a FY2012 appropriations measure that boosted the FDA’s budget by $50 million, which contrasts sharply with the $285 million cut to the agency passed by the House earlier this year. House and Senate members are now negotiating a compromise between the two versions. Meanwhile, there are also concerns that the FDA may be a target for the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction, which is tasked with releasing a plan by Nov. 23 to identify $1.2 trillion in deficit reduction over 10 years.

These funding uncertainties will be a looming topic of concern as thousands of academics, scientists and representatives from the pharmaceutical industry convene in San Francisco this weekend for the AACR-NCI-EORTC International Conference: Molecular Targets and Cancer Therapeutics to discuss innovations in drug development, target selection and the impact of new discoveries in molecular biology.

“Rapid advancements in molecular biology and genetics are leading to an abundance of new targets for cancer therapies,” said Frank McCormick, Ph.D., FRS, chair of the AACR Task Force on Regulatory Science and Policy, which was established with the goal of supporting FDA efforts to improve and modernize the regulatory process. “The excitement in this field is palpable, but it is tempered by anxiety over what is happening on Capitol Hill. These discoveries won’t advance to patients quickly enough unless Congress adequately funds the FDA.”

According to a recently released FDA report, the agency has approved 35 new medicines during the past 12 months, among the highest number of approvals in the past decade and surpassed only by 2009. Seven of the new medicines represent major advances in cancer treatment.

“The science underlying these new innovations is expanding at an incredible speed, as we will see at the upcoming AACR-NCI-EORTC conference,” said Margaret Foti, Ph.D., M.D. (h.c.), chief executive officer of the AACR. “It is absolutely essential that Congress provide the FDA the resources needed to keep pace and continue to drive new breakthroughs quickly through the drug development pipeline to patients.”

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The mission of the American Association for Cancer Research is to prevent and cure cancer. Founded in 1907, the AACR is the world’s oldest and largest professional organization dedicated to advancing cancer research. The membership includes 33,000 laboratory, translational and clinical researchers; health care professionals; and cancer survivors and advocates in the United States and more than 90 other countries. The AACR marshals the full spectrum of expertise from the cancer community to accelerate progress in the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of cancer through high-quality scientific and educational programs. It funds innovative, meritorious research grants, research fellowships and career development awards to young investigators, and it also funds cutting-edge research projects conducted by senior researchers. The AACR has numerous fruitful collaborations with organizations and foundations in the U.S. and abroad, and functions as the Scientific Partner of Stand Up To Cancer, a charitable initiative that supports groundbreaking research aimed at getting new cancer treatments to patients in an accelerated time frame. The AACR Annual Meeting attracts more than 17,000 participants who share the latest discoveries and developments in the field. Special Conferences throughout the year present novel data across a wide variety of topics in cancer research, treatment and patient care, and Educational Workshops are held for the training of young cancer investigators. The AACR publishes seven major peer-reviewed journals: Cancer Discovery; Cancer Research; Clinical Cancer Research; Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention; Molecular Cancer Therapeutics; Molecular Cancer Research; and Cancer Prevention Research. In 2010, AACR journals received 20 percent of the total number of citations given to oncology journals. The AACR also publishes Cancer Today, a magazine for cancer patients, survivors and their caregivers, which provides practical knowledge and new hope for cancer survivors. A major goal of the AACR is to educate the general public and policymakers about the value of cancer research in improving public health, the vital importance of increases in sustained funding for cancer research and biomedical science, and the need for national policies that foster innovation and the acceleration of progress against the 200 diseases we call cancer.

Media Contact:
Michele Sharp
(267) 312-8711
Michele.Sharp@aacr.org

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