June 2024
News
CANCollaborate Board of Directors - Greg Simon
As a newly formed non-profit we are still in the process of finalizing our entire board, but we are thrilled to announce that Greg Simon has agreed to be our first appointed board member. (see full bio below)
Current Board Members
Mr. Greg Simon
Mr. Steven Wallman, co-founder and chair of the board
Ms. Jane Wilkinson, co-founder and president of CANCollaborate
In addition to creating the board we have a strong team of CANCollaborators that cover every aspect of rare cancer care and research including oncologists, surgeons, technologists, and patient advocates. You can find the full list here - cancollaborate.org/cancollaborators
Mr. Simon has held senior positions in both chambers of Congress, served in two Presidential administrations. He was a senior strategy consultant to a variety of international technology CEO’s, co-founded with Michael Milken, and led, FasterCures, co-founded and led the Melanoma Research Alliance. He was the Senior Vice President at Pfizer for Worldwide Policy and Patient
Engagement, and was the CEO of Poliwogg, a financial services company creating unique capital market opportunities and indexes in healthcare and life sciences. He has developed a reputation as a visionary strategist, a dynamic public speaker and writer, and as an expert analyst of emerging trends in healthcare, information technology, innovative drug research and
development, and patient advocacy. Most recently, Greg was the President of the Biden Cancer Initiative, a nonprofit formed by Vice President Joe Biden and Dr. Jill Biden to continue the work of the White House Cancer Moonshot to double the rate of progress in preventing, detecting, diagnosing, treating, and surviving cancer. He was also instrumental in crafting the regulatory framework that is now the foundation for the biotechnology industry.
Greg Simon, CANCollaborate Board Member & Advisor
Research Updates
Advancing CANCollaborate's Mission: Workshop on CRS - cytoreductive surgery and HIPEC - heated intra-peritoneal chemotherapy
On March 7th and 11th, CANCollaborate hosted a series of virtual discussions with surgical oncologists who perform HIPEC for appendiceal cancer patients. During the discussions, leaders of the field described areas where they see opportunities for advancements that could be made in the field of appendiceal cancer research. A major point shared by everyone in attendance was the need for a clinical trials network, as well as an EMR informed registry to standardize the way that data is collected. With this, there would be the need to use a uniform mechanism to extract data from the EMRs. It was discussed that having a clinical trial network and the infrastructure in place will hopefully attract the interest of the pharmaceutical industry to test new therapies, as well as lower the costs associated with doing the clinical trials that are desperately needed to identify new therapeutic options for patients. Follow up meetings are ongoing.
Collaborations & Partnerships
CANCollaborate & SHEPHERD Health - investigating the transcriptome of appendiceal cancer patients
CANCollaborate and SHEPHERD Health are working together to investigate the transcriptome of appendiceal cancer patients, with the hope of identifying potential new therapeutic opportunities. Working with our CANCollaborators, we are compiling available RNA sequencing data by exploring all potential sources including published data, unpublished studies, and data generated by commercial vendors. SHEPHERD will then deploy their computational platform, DELVE, to identify signatures of drug sensitivity in appendiceal cancer patients with the aim of generating hypotheses regarding new therapeutic options.
Meetings & Conferences
Goodwin’s Rare Disease Day
March 2024 - Goodwin Law’s Life Sciences team hosted its Annual Rare Disease Symposium in Boston on March 13, 2024. CANCollaborate attended the symposium that included engaging fireside chats, inspirational presentations, and networking with the rare disease community.
Goodwin Law - Rare Disease Day
American Association for Cancer Research - Annual Meeting
April 2024 - CANCollaborate attended the American Association for Cancer Research meeting held in San Diego from April 5th through to the 10th. Jane and Jamie presented a poster titled “CANCollaborate: Transforming rare cancer research through cooperation and collaboration”. It was also an opportunity to connect in-person with our network of CANCollaborators with a particular highlight to Dr. Flatmark from Norway and Dr. Mahon from Australia - these in-person international meetings are essential for furthering global collaborations, and for meeting the cancer therapy dogs too.
