The LUNGevity Foundation has announced that Ellen Sigal, Friends of Cancer Research Chairperson and Founder, and Executive Director Jeff Allen, PhD, were recently distinguished as the September LUNGevity Heroes for the work they have done advocating for policies to improve health outcomes and cancer care, and for being responsible for the creation of groundbreaking initiatives such as Lung Cancer Master Protocol (Lung-MAP).
The LUNGevity Foundation is committed towards increasing the quality of life and overall survival of people suffering with lung cancer and by fast-tracking research into early detection and trying to develop efficient treatments, while providing community, support, and education for both patients and families affected by lung cancer.
Lung-MAP is a multi-drug, multi-arm, biomarker-driven clinical trial for patients with advanced squamous cell lung cancer, enrolling approximately 10,000 patients, of which 500-1,000 will be screened for over 200 cancer-related genomic alterations per year.
Depending on the results of the screening, each patient could be assigned to a drug program that is more suitable for their tumor’s genetic profile, this way creating a type of personalized therapy.
Due to its cutting edge approach in clinical trial design, Lung-MAP can speed up results for the scientific community, drug accessibility to patients, and successful drugs to market.
“This diverse, collaborative approach, with support from leading lung cancer advocacy organizations, helps to ensure that the needs of patients, clinicians, developers, and regulators are all considered in the design and operation of the trial,” Dr. Sigal said in a PR Newswire press release.
“Dr. Sigal and Dr. Allen have not only been able to show that there is a faster and more efficient way to achieve scientific progress, but also that the concepts ‘pro-business’ and ‘patient-centric’ are not mutually exclusive. With the help of government agencies, pharmaceutical companies, advocacy groups, and other nonprofits, we can provide vital, life-extending treatments to those diagnosed with lung cancer. Through creative collaboration, our community has the potential to achieve remarkable progress”, Andrea Ferris, president and chairman of LUNGevity Foundation added in a foundation press release.
