To propel it forward, the Parker Foundation will formally announce today the launch of the Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy at a celebrity-laden event in Los Angeles. Parker announced on Wednesday about the venture starting research to develop immunotherapy that will focus on mobilizing body’s own defense systems to fight mutant cancer cells. “We believe that the creation of a new funding and research model can overcome numerous obstacles that now prevent research breakthroughs”. Given the promise certain types of immunotherapy has shown in early clinical trials, this newfound funding has the potential to significantly impact the options available for mesothelioma patients, bringing us closer to more effective and successful treatment.
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The new institute will be led by Jeff Bluestone, the respected former University of California at San Francisco provost and immunologist who is one of 28 members of a blue-ribbon experts panel recently named by Vice President Biden to advise the government’s $1 billion “moonshot” initiative to cure cancer.
According to Fortune, Mr. Parker’s donation is the largest single contribution ever made to the field of immunotherapy. Each of the cancer centers in the consortium agrees it will send top scientists to join the Parker Institute and relinquish considerable control over their research.
Its focus will on the emerging field of cancer immunotherapy, which is now being led by Bristol-Myers Squibb’s ($BMY) Opdivo and Merck’s ($MRK) Keytruda, with a new PD-L1 drug from Roche ($RHHBY) expected to be approved by the FDA later this year.
More than 300 scientists will work together in the hope of turning discoveries into cancer treatments.
The Parker Institute features many prominent cancer centers at institutions including UCLA, Penn and the University of Texas.
The institute will license the research findings from each of the cancer centers in order to share.
Parker recognizes that immunotherapy is at a critical tipping point, and needs support to continue basic research that won’t turn a profit right away, Allison said. The logic is obvious: remove the restrictions that the competitive, privatised health sector in the US operates under and maybe, just maybe, more progress can be made. In some cases, patients with stage 4 disease have been found to have no sign of the disease after treatment, although it is unclear whether the cancer will return at a later date.
A lifelong sufferer of food allergies and asthma, Parker has been interested in the body’s immune reaction to disease, both in how the immune system overreacts to attack healthy tissue and how immune cells can be used to treat cancer and other conditions.
Six cancer centers will participate in the partnership, sharing research money and also scientific results.
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One of Parker’s best friends, prominent Hollywood producer Laura Ziskin, founded Stand up to Cancer, and she was instrumental in shaping Parker’s thinking about the disease.
