Pancreas Cancer Funding Aims to Accelerate Treatments
UNMC (www.unmc.edu) and Nebraska Medicine physicians and scientists are among the world’s leaders in developing and testing treatments for pancreatic cancer, a deadly disease that kills 200 Nebraskans annually. Unfortunately, current funding supports only about 20% of that team’s best ideas for developing new diagnostic tests and therapies to fight the disease, said Kelsey Klute, MD, a medical oncologist at the Fred & Pamela Buffett Cancer Center.
“In other words, four out of five of our best ideas for how to better diagnose and treat pancreatic cancer are delayed or not investigated because of insufficient funding,” Dr. Klute said during testimony before the Legislature’s Appropriations Committee. “So I will ask you to consider LB 766 as a means to overcome the roadblocks we encounter in funding sources so that we can accelerate progress in pancreatic cancer.”
LB 766, sponsored by Sen. Mark Kolterman, would provide $15 million in one-time funding from the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) for the UNMC Pancreatic Cancer Center of Excellence. That funding would be matched by $15 million in philanthropic funding to aggressively pursue the development and testing of new therapies. Already, Buffett Cancer Center pancreatic cancer researchers are supported by $8 million in annual funding from the National Cancer Institute.
Pancreatic cancer is among the most lethal cancers, in part because it is typically diagnosed after it has spread to other organs and systems.
Dr. Gold and Dr. Klute both acknowledged how COVID-19 added to the challenges of caring for pancreatic cancer patients.
“In the past two years we have seen more advanced stage, incurable disease – likely driven by COVID-19-related delays in care or difficulty accessing appropriate care. Clinical trial enrollment took a huge blow in the height of the pandemic, and many clinical trials looking at early signals of activity or safety were put on hold,” Dr. Klute said. “We know the pandemic had an enormous impact on cancer screening – 10 million less cases of cancer were diagnosed than expected in 2020 alone, and so we expect to see lingering effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on the development of new therapies and on patient outcomes.”
UNMC oncologist James Armitage, MD, and his wife, Shirley Young Armitage, also testified in favor of the bill. Both lost spouses to pancreatic cancer.
“Success here will not come cheap, but your support will make it happen,” Dr. Armitage said. “You will launch a program that will bring resources to our state that we would not have had, cause pride in what will be accomplished, give hope to patients and families facing this terrible disease – and the outcome will be people surviving that would have died.”
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