BioCentury
ARTICLE | Politics & Policy

Coalition aims for cancer MoonShot

January 13, 2016 1:39 AM UTC

Stakeholders including biopharma companies, academic research centers, community oncologists, payer Independence Blue Cross (Philadelphia, Pa.) and Bank of America Corp. (NYSE:BAC) launched the MoonShot 2020 initiative to test combination therapies in immuno-oncology. The initiative said it plans to evaluate up to 20 tumor types in 20,000 cancer patients at all disease stages by 2020.

Industry partners formed the National Immunotherapy Coalition (NIC) to undertake the initiative. Companies involved include Amgen Inc. (NASDAQ:AMGN), Celgene Corp. (NASDAQ:CELG), NantKwest Inc. (NASDAQ:NK), NantWorks LLC (Los Angeles, Calif.), Etubics Corp. (Seattle, Wash.), Altor BioScience Corp. (Miramar, Fla.) and Precision Biologics Inc. (Dallas, Texas). NIC said it will have access to over 60 immunotherapies, targeted therapies and chemotherapies from the partners. ...