The Biden Cancer Initiative has teamed up with numerous organizations that will create a shared platform that helps cancer patients know their clinical trial options.
BreastCancerTrials.org, Cancer Commons, Ciitizen, EmergingMed, GenomOncology, Genospace/Sarah Cannon Research Institute, IBM Watson Health, Massive Bio and Syapse will work together to create a first release of the platform, which is called the Oncology Clinical Trial Information Commons.
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OCTIC allows information about clinical trials — including patient selection criteria, trial locations and patient participation requirements — to be stored and accessed for patient matching and other data mining purposes. Biopharma companies will be able to enter and update their trials. Clinical trial sponsors and investigators will be able to mark certain parameters for private disclosure.
The aforementioned OCTIC founding member organizations will decide on which technologies to contribute to the solution and will collaborate to run pilot programs to test the platform. The Biden Cancer Initiative will help by facilitating meetings and partnerships and fostering pilot programs.
Ultimately, the goal of the effort is to assist the various stakeholders in the clinical trials space. For instance, government registry programs can read directly from the OCTIC, while patient advocacy organizations and tech developers can connect to it to power their services.
In 2017, the Biden Cancer Initiative launched as a venture aimed at accelerating progress in cancer prevention, detection, diagnosis, research and care. Greg Simon, who spoke at MedCity’s CONVERGE conference in 2017, serves as its president. Joe and Jill Biden stepped down from the initiative’s board of directors when Joe announced his presidential campaign in April 2019.
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The Biden Cancer Initiative sprung from the Cancer Moonshot, which former President Barack Obama introduced during his 2016 State of the Union address. He appointed then-Vice President Biden to lead the charge on the Moonshot.
Biden has long been outspoken about the country’s healthcare system. In 2018, he spoke at the StartUp Health Festival during J.P. Morgan Week in San Francisco and touched on his frustrations with cancer treatment affordability and research funding, among other topics. He also discussed his dreams for the future of medicine. “There is so much hope and promise, but we aren’t there yet,” Biden said during the festival.
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