President Announces Ambitious 'Moonshot' Plan to Cure Cancer Within Five Years

The President announced a sweeping new initiative to accelerate progress in the fight against cancer, including a heavy infusion of funds into the National Institutes of Health and the setting of a lofty goal: to make a decade of advances in cancer prevention, diagnosis and treatment within the next five years.
In his State of the Union address, the President declared cancer research a "national mission" and said the ambitious goal of making a decade's worth of progress in five years was "gathered from researchers, doctors and patient advocates across the country."
The effort would draw on private sector partnerships but would also require funding from Congress, including $1.8 billion for the National Institutes of Health alone to speed the development of precision medicine treatments tailored to a patient's genetic code.
Several major pharmaceutical companies have pledged to share molecular data about their clinical trials for cancer drugs with researchers and plan to help expand clinical trials to include more patients.
Reactions to the announcement ranged from enthusiasm at the prospect of major investments in an important cause to skepticism about whether such an ambitious goal was realistic given the difficulties of scientific research and the long timelines of clinical trials.