National Cancer Act of 2002
February 28, 2002

Mr. President, I rise today to introduce the National Cancer Act of 2002. This bill has broad, bipartisan support -- This bill is co-sponsored by (27) Senators Gordon Smith, Daschle, Jeffords, Clinton, Hutchison, Mikulski, Snowe, Boxer, Collins, Landrieu, Chafee, Murray, Lincoln, Stabenow, Cantwell, Carnahan, Schumer, Torricelli, Ben Nelson, Johnson, Reed, Breaux, Corzine, Leahy, Reid, Kerry, and Bill Nelson.

This bill is a new battle plan to fight cancer, which takes into account the advances that have been made in understanding the human genome, making it possible to move forward with a whole new series of drugs that could stop cancer as the devastating disease that it is today.

This effort grew out of my work as the chair of the Senate Cancer Coalition and vice-chair of the National Dialogue on Cancer, when it became clear to me that we needed to update the National Cancer Act and develop a new battle plan.

At that time, I asked Dr. John Seffrin, CEO of the American Cancer Society, and Dr. Vincent DeVita, Director of the Yale Cancer Center and former head of the National Cancer Institute, to form a special committee to provide recommendations on a new legislation.

Dr. Seffrin and Dr. DeVita brought 21 of the foremost experts on cancer together to form the National Cancer Legislation Advisory Committee.

The advisory committee produced a very ambitious plan, and we have tried to take the most important components of the plan, within our present budget constraints, and create a workable piece of legislation.

National Cancer Act of 2002

When Congress passed the first National Cancer Act in 1971, cancer was a death sentence, and doctors mainly sought ways to ease their patient's pain. Since then, however, the way we treat, research, and understand cancer has changed dramatically.

As I mentioned, the advances in understanding the human genome have opened promising paths to treatments that have thus far produced medications like Gleevec for Chronic Myeloid Leukemia and Herceptin for Breast Cancer, that can target and destroy just the cancer cells, while leaving the healthy cells intact.

At a press conference yesterday to unveil the bill, we heard from Phylecia Wilson, who was diagnosed with chronic myeloid leukemia, a deadly form of blood cancer.

Treated with Gleevec in a clinical trial, Phylecia is in full remission, and is doing extremely well one year later. She is living example of the incredible advances we have made since 1971, and the promise of medications like Gleevec.

With these new treatments, patients like Phylecia will not have to suffer the fatigue, the nausea, the loss of hair, and the toxicity associated with today's chemotherapy.

I believe the promise of these medications is now so bright that we might well be able to find a cure for cancer within my lifetime.

Specifically, this legislation would:

1. Increase the Percentage of Research Grants approved from 28 percent to up to 40 percent over 5 years - It is this research that's going to find the cure, and which will produce new drugs like Gleevec and Herceptin.

Currently, the National Cancer Institute funds only 28 percent of qualified grant requests submitted. And over 5 years, this legislation provides funding to increase that level to up to 40 percent.

NCI scientists believe that a 40 percent approval rate will allow them to fund all of the most promising grant proposals - at 28 percent, this doesn't happen.

In the first year, this would mean an additional $600 million for basic research - very close to what the President has put in his budget.

2. Increase the Number of Cancer Researchers - One of the most significant problems we face is that every year, young physicians and researchers avoid the field of cancer research because it doesn't pay well, and they feel they can make a better living elsewhere.

To attract the best and the brightest to the cancer field, this bill includes a grant program of $190.5 million to:

• Alleviate the medical school debts of 100 physicians who commit to spend at least 3 years doing cancer research; and secondly



• Boost the salaries of 1,000 postdoctoral fellows over 5 years, beyond the current level of $28,000.

This will help add thousands of men and women on the front lines of the fight.

3. Speed Research into Treatments -- The legislation would provide $100 million a year for 5 years in grants and other incentives to move basic research from the laboratory and bring it more quickly into hospital rooms, clinics and to the bedside.

There are approximately 400 new drugs that are held up in the development process because the resources are not available to fund clinical research to test those drugs.

In fact, only 5 percent of adult cancer patients (versus 60 percent of children) are today participating in clinical trials.

Clinical trials are vital to moving drugs out of the research phase into the treatment phase.

Additionally, this bill would require that public and private insurance providers pay for the routine costs of clinical trials.

4. Encourage Production of "Orphan Drugs" - Gleevec, for instance, is targeted to a specific form of cancer -- Chronic Myeloid Leukemia -- which only 4,500 people a year are diagnosed with. This makes it a kind of orphan drug.

Increasingly, this seems to be the way that these new medications can be the most effective -- by targeting a narrow genetic or cellular mutation. However, this could make the production of these drugs cost-prohibitive.

The legislation would, therefore, change the orphan drug program to include tax and marketing incentives to encourage pharmaceutical companies to produce drugs targeted to patient populations of less than 200,000.

5. Provides Patients with a Cancer Quarterback - In our cancer coalition hearing last year, we learned of the loneliness and the isolation that many cancer patients face.

Many patients, in fact, have no physician who can guide them through the complicated and sometimes contradictory course of cancer treatment, no professional to advise them what is best.

This bill would require insurance plans to pay doctors, preferably oncologists, to become the overall managers of patients' care, in effect providing every cancer patient with a "Cancer Quarterback" physician to help them coordinate care and make the necessary decisions.

6. FDA Regulation of Tobacco - Thirty percent of all cancer deaths are related to the use of tobacco products, totaling approximately 165,000 deaths a year.

Any battle plan must deal with tobacco, and its substantial impact on cancer.

This bill would place tobacco under the regulation by the Food and Drug Administration for both the content of tobacco products and the marketing of them to children.

I have been pleased to note that even Philip Morris has acknowledged this need on its website:

"We believe federal legislation that includes granting FDA authority to regulate tobacco products could effectively address many of the complex tobacco issues that concern the public, the public health community and us."

It is long past time to reduce the addictive nature of cigarettes and curtail the marketing of these products to young people -- empowering the FDA to regulate tobacco will help do that.

I hope my colleagues will take a look at this legislation, and join me in the fight against cancer. It is a disease which does not discriminate between Republicans and Democrats, it affects both equally.