In April, ASCO submitted a statement to both the U.S. House and Senate Appropriations Labor, Health and Human Services Subcommittees, asking Congress to build on last year’s support for federally funded cancer research with sustained funding growth for the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and National Cancer Institute (NCI) in fiscal year 2017. Specifically, ASCO asked for $34.5 billion for NIH and $5.9 billion for NCI.

ASCO thanked Congressional lawmakers for securing the largest funding increase for NIH in more than a decade in the FY2016 appropriations process, yet underscored the urgency to continue funding increases for federal cancer research. According to the Society, additional federal resources must be directed toward areas that represent the most promising opportunities for treatment advancements, namely big data, the Cancer Moonshot initiative, precision medicine, clinical trials, and translational research efforts.

“If we are to conquer cancer, we need to invest more as a nation so that we can prepare for what lies ahead. Cancer care is set to change more dramatically in the next 20 years than it did in the last 50, thanks in part to advances in health information technology and a deeper understanding of cancer’s molecular drivers. As biomedical discovery expands, we need to be able to answer difficult questions and pursue new research directions,” ASCO Immediate Past President Julie M. Vose, MD, MBA, FASCO, said in the statement.

Please visit ASCO in Action for the latest news on federal funding for cancer research.