PEDIATRIC CANCER Two weeks after Kids v Cancer Founder Nancy Goodman’s eight year old son, Jacob, was diagnosed with medulloblastoma, a rare form of pediatric brain cancer, doctors gave him a round of chemotherapy. Jacob’s tumors did not respond. Why then, didn’t Jacob’s medical team change his chemotherapy protocol? Because in the last 30 years, no new drugs have been developed to treat Jacob’s form of cancer. In fact, in the past 20 years, only one drug has been expressly developed for any form of pediatric cancer. Jacob died on January 16, 2009 when he was ten years old. http://wp.me/1cg8a
The Creating Hope Act
The Creating Hope Act of 2011 would encourage the creation of new drugs for underserved children who suffer from serious and rare medical conditions, including life-threatening cancers, by providing a voucher to pharmaceutical companies who develop such drugs. This voucher could be used to secure expedited FDA approval for any other drug — particularly a blockbuster drug– so that that drug could be delivered to market faster. The voucher would constitute a strong, market incentive for pharmaceutical companies to develop drugs for children with serious and rare diseases, such as cancer. The Act builds on the “FDA Amendments Act of 2007,” which established a voucher for drug development for neglected tropical diseases.
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