The American Cancer Society (ACS) is teaming up with Merck, Roche and Regeneron to bolster a lung cancer screening campaign.
The "Get Screened" initiative, which began in 2020 with a focus on those most affected by the pandemic, is now honing in on enhancing "access to lung cancer screening for all patients, with a focus on communities with historical inequities,” according to an ACS press release.
This expansion is being backed by Merck, marketer of the world’s biggest lung cancer drug Keytruda, as well as Regeneron, which sells Libtayo for certain forms of lung cancer, and Roche’s Genentech unit, which has worked on several major lung cancer meds over the past few decades.
The idea is simple: Get more people tested for a disease that, in 2019, saw 228,000 Americans diagnosed with lung cancer, with around 142,600 projected to die from the disease.
That’s a grim metric showing the disease’s high mortality rate: It’s estimated that nearly 85% of lung cancer diagnoses are made when the disease is in the advanced stages, making treating this disease much harder.
The hope for the ACS is that getting diagnosed earlier can lead to better outcomes, while the pharma backers will hope for more use of their lung cancer drugs to help.
The new initiative, set to kick off in 2024 and supported by its Big Pharma backers, will see the ACS expanding funding for lung cancer screening. This includes bolstering capacity and supporting activities such as quality improvement, mobile screening, screening navigation, outreach and technology, all with the aim of promoting early detection.
“It is through partnerships like this that we are able to accelerate our efforts to improve lung cancer screening rates and save lives,” said Karen E. Knudsen, Ph.D., CEO of the American Cancer Society, in the release.
“Raising awareness and increasing screening rates go hand in hand with dethroning lung cancer as the leading cause of cancer deaths in the United States.”
Marjorie Green, M.D., senior vice president and head of late-stage oncology at Merck Research Laboratories, emphasized that while recent advancements in lung cancer research have brought renewed hope to patients and their families, there is still more work to be done, especially in enhancing screening rates.
“It is clear that detection of earlier-stage disease can make a significant difference for patients, and I’m hopeful that the continued efforts from the healthcare and advocacy communities will increase awareness around the importance of lung cancer screenings and help diagnose patients earlier, when they have the best chance for better outcomes,” she said in the release.