A 25-year old idea, a concept named “the American Centers for Cures,” proposed by Lou Weisbach, a former CEO of a Fortune 500 company and a political insider, aims to shift the paradigm of research funding. 

In this episode of The Cancer Letter Podcast, Jacquelyn Cobb, associate editor of The Cancer Letter, and Paul Goldberg, editor and publisher, talk about Weisbach’s bold $750 billion bond plan aimed at curing diseases. At a time of NIH upheaval, while funding is in limbo for a great amount of biomedical research—the idea is gaining some momentum. 

“The idea is, the depth of it, is the system that we have in oncology—and this is beyond oncology—were it to be built today, it would look very very different from what it is right now,” Paul said. “Which is true. It’s a system that evolved.”

“What these guys are suggesting is to design something that is more driven to produce outcomes, as opposed to studying the thing,” Paul said.

The scientist’s job would be to cure the disease. And, if they don’t, there is accountability, Jacquelyn said.

“It’s turning the whole process of cancer and biomedical research on its head,” Jacquelyn said. “It’s a lot more like a business,” 

Weisbach wants the federal government to issue $750 billion in bonds over six years to fund the enterprise, and he plans to bring his idea to the White House. 

Stories mentioned this week include:

• As Trump decimates NIH funding, a daring proposal to issue $750 billion in bonds for medical cures garners attention 

• Lou Weisbach tells us about his plan to raise $750 billion for the American Center for Cures

• Mark J. Ratain, David A. Hyman, Jill E. Feldman, Beth R. Jacobson, Allen S. Lichter: Optimizing dosing of expensive and toxic oncology drugs: Making America healthier

• Donald L. "Skip" Trump, Eric T. Rosenthal: Federal funding cutbacks undermine advances in cancer research and treatment

What would Richard Nixon and Ted Kennedy think?

• Linda Malkas: From “undruggable” target to clinical potential: The journey of AOH1996

• “Forward funding” NIH budget plan would make competing for grants much harder

• Federal judge rules Trump directives canceling NIH grants “illegal,” orders them to be restored

• NIH Director Jay Bhattacharya launches a podcast

A transcript of this episode is available at https://cancerletter.com/podcastc/20250625-american-center-for-cures/ 

In this episode of The Cancer Letter Podcast, Jacquelyn and Paul talk about the first meeting of the National Cancer Advisory Board, the uncertainty of cancer registries, and about choosing what to cover as the Trump administration “floods the zone.”

At the time of recording, the recording of the two June 10 NCAB meetings had been taken off the videocast website, raising concerns about the availability of public record.

“We do watch these things and we do care about these things, and I think the world needs to have these things,” Paul said “Having an entire two meetings missing, I sure as heck hope they find them. But, again, this is something that's of great importance to us and probably not many others.”

As of June 18, both NCAB meetings are now available on the NIH website. 

“A few years ago, really a few months ago, we would've made a big deal out of this because, this is public record. That's what we do,” Paul said.

As a near-endless stream of crucial information trickles out of Washington and out of cancer centers across the country, Jacquelyn talks about how important it is to keep up. 

“It’s the first time in my journalistic career—very short journalistic career—that it feels like we really have to be writing this stuff down,” Jacquelyn said. “We have to be recording it. People's lives are at stake, you know?”

Other stories mentioned this week include:

• The Directors: Candace Johnson and Jonathan Friedberg on living through uncertainty at NCI, payment woes

• Senators slam Bhattacharya for deflecting responsibility for NIH cuts, upheaval—Susan Collins: Trump’s 40% cut is “so disturbing”

• In first NCAB meeting since Trump's inauguration, Lowy reflects on funding choices in lean times

• CRC patients with cannabis use disorder may have higher odds of death within five years of diagnosis

• The Cancer Letter receives nine journalism, design awards  

• In “Bethesda Declaration,” NIH employees, Nobel laureates say Bhattacharya is favoring politics over U.S. science, health

Access the transcript of this episode at https://cancerletter.com/podcastc/missing-record-of-ncab/

Directors of two neighboring cancer centers in Upstate New York will face challenges but “we’ll get through it.”

Candace Johnson leads America’s oldest cancer research center and Jonathan Friedberg leads the newest NCI-designated center. Their catchment areas are contiguous, their faculties and staff work seamlessly together, and together their institutions embody the culture of NCI-designated cancer centers. 

What worries them the most? It’s a combination of threats coming from Washington. 

“I think what’s a challenge is all of these things coming together,” said Jonathan W. Friedberg, director of the University of Rochester Wilmot Cancer Institute, who holds the Samuel E. Durand Chair in Medicine at the Department of Medicine. 

“In and of itself, could we weather an indirect cost adjustment? Probably,” Friedberg said. “But if that happens at the same time as a Medicaid cut? For us, 340B is a major, major way that our medical center receives funding. If that is interrupted? And site neutrality as far as places where care is delivered and how that’s reimbursed?”

What about the nearly 40% cut in the NCI budget that is being proposed by the Trump administration? 

“Yes, that could be significant too. I mean, I think that I’m a little more optimistic in general. I mean a very optimistic person in how I try to handle these things,” said Candace S. Johnson, president & CEO of Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center, who also holds the M&T Bank Presidential Chair in Leadership.

With widespread support for cancer research, NCI funding is bound to bounce back in due course, Johnson said.

“Everyone supports cancer research, no matter who you talk to, on what side of the aisle—everybody, because it affects all of us. Everybody wants to be able to continue funding for the NCI,” Johnson said. “And so, I’m hopeful that this is all going to come back to some of these levels where it makes it at least achievable to get a grant.”

Steven T. Rosen, the Ted Schwartz Family Distinguished Chair in Hematologic Malignancies at City of Hope, a discussant on this episode of The Directors, said current challenges come at a time when science is being translated into patient benefits. 

As an expert in lymphomas and chronic leukemias, two decades ago, Rosen expected that half of his patients would die of their diseases. 

This is no longer the case.

Progress like what Rosen has seen in the clinic requires resources, he said.

“Resources are needed—there’s no question,” said Rosen, who served as director of Northwestern’s Robert H. Lurie Comprehensive Cancer Center for 24 years. “And people could argue about how much should be indirects versus directs, but every dollar that would be cut from the NIH or from other funding sources will be detrimental.

“There’s no way of getting around that.”

“Your entire practice, cancer has been associated with an aging population, and then you have a young, beautiful, healthy-looking woman like Alisa Secaida come into your office, it's not a surprise that the doctor, their knee-jerk reaction would be like, ‘Maybe just slow down,’” said The Cancer Letter’s Claire Marie Porter.

In this episode of In the Headlines, Paul Goldberg, editor and publisher of The Cancer Letter, and Claire, reporter, talk about the increasing incidence rates of early-onset cancer, particularly in young women. Claire’s story centered on a 35 year old fit and otherwise healthy mother of two who was diagnosed with stage 4 lung cancer.

Secaida’s story is not unique, Claire said. ACS data shows that, this just came out recently, earlier this year, that women are now being diagnosed almost twice as much with cancer as men, and that's a reversal of prior trends.

This rise in early-onset cancers is a paradigm shift that oncology isn't quite prepared for, Claire said.

“There's not really a bad guy here. It's just that things are happening. And not only our guidelines and screenings practices, standards of care is not caught up, but I think biases are not caught up either,” Claire said. “I don't think that there's nothing malicious happening here, which is what makes it even more nuanced in such a difficult gray area for young people who are told to advocate for themselves, because sometimes that falls flat.”

Stories mentioned in this podcast include:

• Young women are now diagnosed with cancer at twice the rate of young men. The face of cancer is changing at a time when research is plagued by existential threats 

• Reimagining cancer care for a new generation of patients

• Loss of Y chromosome “cripples” immune cells, University of Arizona researcher finds. Cells with LOY may induce LOY in otherwise healthy cells—a finding that could explain variability in CAR T-cell therapy response

• Bridging the gaps in cancer care for Hispanics: Striving for equity and fairness in scientific advancements

• Harmon Eyre, former ACS chief medical and scientific officer, dies at 84

• George Sigounas named the first-ever chief science advisor at NCI

• Success rates for RPGs at NCI would plummet from 13.4% to 8.3% if Trump’s FY2026 budget is enacted

• FDA booth stood empty at 2025 ASCO annual meeting

• ALT GOV: The HHS “resistance” on social media    

A transcript of this podcast is available: https://cancerletter.com/podcastc/20250611-early-onset/ 

“Patients are counting on us, and this remains the best time to be involved in cancer research,” W. Kimryn Rathmell said to The Cancer Letter. 

Rathmell spoke with The Cancer Letter’s Paul Goldberg on her first day as CEO of The Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center – Arthur G. James Cancer Hospital and Richard J. Solove Research Institute.

“We can now study, in patients, things that previously before we could only try to guess at that,” Rathmell said. “There are discoveries we can make in real time that will change and impact patients like next year and the year after, not decades from now, not in another generation.”

In this episode of In the Headlines, Paul Goldberg, editor of The Cancer Letter, and Jacquelyn Cobb, associate editor, call in from the American Society of Clinical Oncology annual meeting to discuss the happenings at the meeting, Paul’s conversation with Rathmell—and FDA’s empty booth.

Rathmell encouraged young investigators to stay the course.

“Money may be scarce, but the ideas are not,” Rathmell said. “There are great ideas out there. I would encourage anyone who is interested in this career path to really double down. Really, the boldest ideas are the ones that are going to be funded, and to do innovative work and to be enthusiastic about the work that they're doing.”

Stories mentioned in this podcast include:

• We catch up with Kimryn Rathmell on her first day as CEO at OSUCCC – James

• Pfizer seeks to improve breast cancer outcomes in Sub-Saharan Africa With help from Conquer Cancer’s EveryGrant and ASCO’s Sub-Saharan Africa Regional Council, Pfizer awards grants to seven countries

• The other side of the patient portal: Reflections from a cancer center leader, writes Ruben Mesa 

• Boris Pasche: Surviving cancer is often not a patient’s most challenging battle

• A farewell post by an unidentified NCI employee triggers an accusation of “undermining the Trump administration”

A transcript of this podcast is available: https://cancerletter.com/podcastc/20250604-rathmell/

The Oncologic Drugs Advisory Committee held its first session since President Trump’s inauguration, with a two-day, back-to-back marathon meeting, signaling a return to business at FDA after significant upheaval at the agency.

In this episode of The Cancer Letter Podcast, Paul Goldberg, editor and publisher of The Cancer Letter and Jacquelyn Cobb, associate editor, talk about Jacquelyn’s coverage of the ODAC “marathon.”

“We've definitely talked about how, maybe two or three podcasts ago, the idea that what we would give to just cover an ODAC, and then the universe was like, ‘Here's four,’” Jacquelyn said.

“What was really interesting is that they were able to handle all that, and we have no idea how many people really are remaining at FDA in parts of FDA oncology,” Paul said. “It didn't get too badly clobbered, although from what I understand, the middle level, kind of like people who are between the OCE director and the medical reviewers, they're sort of all gone. They've all moved on or mostly gone, so it's a different game, but it also tells you how important it is to have this agency and to have this function, to have the vision. 

“I don't know where we are in all of this, but it's nice to know that as of last week, things functioned.”

Stories mentioned in this podcast include:

• ODAC marathon: Committee charges through a pileup of clinical questions in a two-day, four-application session

• Guest editorial by Peter Nelson: Biden’s diagnosis is unfortunate but—statistically—not surprising. Of the 384 men serving in Congress, 48 are likely to be diagnosed with prostate cancer in their lifetime. 

• Guest editorial by Eric Lefkofsky and Norman E. Sharpless: Unlocking the future of precision medicine: The untapped power of RNA

• A new AI tool enables speedy use of ASCO guidelines, eliminating typical errors

• PAMN becomes CMCA—the Cancer Marketing & Communications Association—as its size and scope expand

• The faces of RIF: Staff members of NCI’s dissolved communications team gather for a farewell group photo]

• FDA Commissioner Makary holds roundtable discussion on harms of talc

• Prasad’s stricter FDA policy for COVID-19 vaccines could limit future access 

  A transcript of this podcast is available: https://cancerletter.com/podcastc/2025028-odac/ 

Wafik El-Deiry, director of the Legorreta Cancer Center at Brown University, joined The Cancer Letter’s weekly podcast to discuss his recent guest editorial—and confirmed his candidacy for director of the National Cancer Institute.

“NCI is a place where, truly, innovative, unique science and translation can and need to take place,” El-Deiry said on the podcast. 

El-Deiry spoke with Paul Goldberg, editor and publisher of The Cancer Letter, and Jacquelyn Cobb, associate editor, about the opportunities he sees for a new NCI director under the Trump administration, and confirmed his candidacy for the role. 

“I have been a candidate since December,” El-Deiry said.

“I think we all would like to see the NIH and the NCI shine and grow and have impact, ultimately, to help patients,” he said. “There's clearly some waste and inefficiency and things that have to be dealt with to start to move in the right direction. But there's also a need for subject matter expertise, and there's a need for strong leadership and strong advocacy for cancer, and in the field of oncology at the NCI, and I think it's urgent.”

Other stories mentioned in this podcast include:

• Wafik El-Deiry: An opportunity for Trump: Position U.S. cancer science to lead the world 

• The Directors: Tom Lynch and Skip Burris on how NIH funding cuts imperil biopharma innovation—and cost patient lives

• Grilled by Congress, Kennedy defends NIH and NCI budget cuts, freezes, and RIFs 

• Kennedy’s claims notwithstanding, NCI clinical trials are delayed, enrollments reduced

• Mace Rothenberg: First exhibit at Museum of Medicine and Biomedical Discovery to focus on the history of cancer research

A transcript of this podcast is available: https://cancerletter.com/podcastc/20250521-wafik-el-deiry/ 

Thomas J. Lynch Jr. and Howard A. “Skip” Burris III lead two institutions that couldn’t be more different—an NCI-designated Comprehensive Cancer Center on one side of the country and a for-profit research enterprise on the other—but they stay up at nights worrying about the same thing:

“Changing the paradigm of how research is funded and how care is funded, I think makes us all a bit nervous,” said Lynch, president and director of Fred Hutch Cancer Center, an NCI-designated Comprehensive Cancer Center in Seattle.

“To stop that flow of ideas from universities and from hospitals to pharmaceutical companies, it is going to basically hand the future of biopharma to countries outside of the United States,” he said.

Burris, president of Sarah Cannon Research Institute, a for-profit community oncology research enterprise in Nashville, agrees. 

“We’ve got a lot of work to do. But so many patients, so many new therapies, so many drugs. In that sense, the opportunities have never been greater,” Burris said. 

“But on the other hand, we’ve got all the, as Tom uses the word, ‘uncertainty’—all this unrest, wondering how we’re going to be able to pay for this, how we’re going to be able to reimburse for various activities,” Burris said. “And really trying to have my team not get distracted and try to reassure them that financially we’re going to be okay, we’ve got to be diligent, we’ve got to think about how we handle those, but to really stay focused on the patients, the trials and the new drugs that are coming forward. 

“And that’s been a bit of a challenge and more so of a challenge of late.”

Julie Gralow, chief medical officer of the American Society of Clinical Oncology, appears on this episode as a discussant.

This episode is sponsored by the American Society of Clinical Oncology. ASCO plays no role in the editorial direction of this podcast.

The transcript for this episode is available: ⁠https://cancerletter.com/podcastc/20250516_1/

Peer review, registries, and evidence-based patient information have taken a hit in Trump’s first 100 days in office.

In this week’s episode, Paul Goldberg, editor and publisher of The Cancer Letter, and Jacquelyn Cobb, associate editor, talk about how the Trump administration’s drastic changes to the cancer research enterprise in the past few weeks. 

Featured in last week’s issue was the recent cut of NCI’s communications team—an admittedly large department that was responsible for maintaining:

• NCI’s website, which the majority of NCI’s divisions, offices, and centers rely on to do the work that they need to do, according to an inside source.

• Physician Data Query, a freely available source of reliable, regularly updated, unbiased cancer-relevant evidence for health professionals, cancer patients, and the general public. The PDQ is “unparalleled,” experts said.

• NCI’s Cancer Information Service, which is an interactive contact center that provides an online chat service, a patient hotline, an email service, and social media interactions.

“We are kind of seeing pieces of it that nobody else cares about, except if you're really deep within oncology,” Paul said. “But what happens next is all of this is going to come down on the actual people, the actual patients very quickly. And then, the whole field gets transformed, and this whole political situation gets transformed because I don't believe that House members or Senate members of either party want to be confronted by cancer patients who are saying, ‘Hey, you're killing me.’"

Stories mentioned this week include:

• Trump administration is removing the mainstays of NCI and the federal government’s cancer program. Peer review, registries, and evidence-based patient information take a big hit.

• George Weiner: Cancer centers are special, as are site visits in CCSG review. 

• Cyber-iconoclast Vinay Prasad named head of FDA’s CBER. An oncologist, Prasad has criticized accelerated approval, next-gen sequencing, and targeted therapies.

• Working with cancer: Rethinking long-term health for working-age adult cancer survivors

• Walter Lawrence Jr.: “The National Cancer Act really gave us a lot of enthusiasm about the future.” 

A transcript of this podcast is available: https://cancerletter.com/podcastc/20250514-NCI/  

The Cancer Letter has covered—and will continue to cover—all the ways in which the current administration is fundamentally reshaping cancer research in the U.S. But this week, The Cancer Letter and the podcast focused on a patient story. 

In this episode of In the Headlines, Paul Goldberg, editor and publisher of The Cancer Letter, and Jacquelyn Cobb, associate editor highlight a profound success story of cancer research: Jacquelyn’s recent story, “Kelly Spill opted for dostarlimab trial, avoiding rectal cancer treatment that would leave her infertile. Six years later, she is well—and pregnant with her third child,” against the backdrop of some of the major changes that have taken place in the last week, including NIH eliminating the NCI Board of Scientific Advisors.

“We have heard from President Trump about all of this,” Paul said. “We have heard from Elon Musk, we have heard from cancer center directors, from Republicans and Democrats in Congress. But what we have not heard was how is all of this affecting patients? What's at stake? So, anytime we now can have a patient voice and actually tell a story about how dramatically benefited this person is, then we should put it on the cover. We should blast the trumpets on this one. The American people need to hear that.”

Kelly Spill was diagnosed with stage 3 rectal cancer at age 28, less than a year after she gave birth to her first child. The standard-of-care treatment for locally advanced rectal cancer—chemotherapy, surgery, and radiation—would have left Spill infertile. Having a big family was a high priority for Spill, and she was devastated by the news of her likely infertility as a result of her cancer treatment. 

After six months of treatment with dostarlimab, Spill’s tumor disappeared. She has been cancer-free since August 2020. Also—Spill was able to get pregnant. Twice. She is due with her third child May 14.

Ironically, the researcher who spearheaded the clinical trial that cured Spill—Luis Diaz, head of the Division of Solid Tumor Oncology in Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center’s Department of Medicine—also appeared in another story from last week. 

Last week, The Cancer Letter reported that Diaz was removed from the National Cancer Advisory Board, which advises and assists the NCI director in shaping the direction of the national cancer research program.

“There's nothing more important in science than how you get advice and whom you get the advice from,” Paul said.