For more than 66 years The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society (LLS) has dedicated its energy and resources to finding cures for blood cancers, investing more than $1 billion over that time. Last night in his State of the Union address, President Obama appointed Vice President Joe Biden to take the lead in a “moon shot” mission to cure cancer. We at LLS agree the time is right. “It’s personal for everybody,” the Vice President later said in a statement. As Vice President Biden...
Congress has approved a $2 billion increase in funding for the National Institutes of Health. The 6.6 percent hike -- to $32.1 billion -- is the largest increase in 12 years and it will make an enormous difference in supporting cancer research in the years ahead. The bill includes a $264 million increase in funding for the National Cancer Institute (boosting NCI funding for the year to $5.2 billion – a 5.3% increase) as well as $200 million in funding for a precision medicine initiative ...
Yesterday we learned the exciting news that the FDA has granted Breakthrough Therapy designation for an investigational immunotherapy LLS is supporting through our Therapy Acceleration Program (TAP). The therapy, KTE-C19, being developed by Kite Pharma, is another example of a chimeric antigen receptor (CAR), an approach that genetically engineers patients’ immune T cells and reintroduces them into the body to kill cancer cells. KTE-C19 is crafted by removing patients' T cells and geneti...
Beat AML is a collaboration launched nearly three years ago by LLS and the Knight Cancer Institute at Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU), to go on the offenensive against acute myeloid leukemia (AML), a blood cancer with a poor prognosis and little change in the standard of care in 40 years. More than a dozen abstracts from the first phase of the initiative will be featured throughout the American Society of Hematology (#ASH15) Annual Meeting in Orlando over the next few days. #...
The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society (LLS) continually advocates for laws and policies to ensure that patients have access to lifesaving treatments. Our latest win came this summer when the U.S. House of Representatives approved the 21st Century Cures Act. This bill, which is proof of LLS’s impact and would make a big difference for blood cancer patients, is now on Congress’ “to do” list. The House of Representatives finished its work on the 21st Century Cures Act in July, levera...
