• Louisiana: Last week, President Joe Biden announced $150 million in research awards as part of his cancer "moonshot" effort while speaking at Tulane University. Each research center, including one at Tulane, will receive the grants, which aim to develop new methods of precision cancer surgery. The other award recipients are Dartmouth College, Johns Hopkins University, Rice University, the University of California, San Francisco, the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, the University of Washington, and Cision Vision. The awards will be made through the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health, which was founded in 2022 and helps drive biomedical innovation. "I will keep fighting for my cancer moonshot, so we can end cancer as we know it, because we can do it," Biden said. (Montague, New York Times, 8/13)
• Maryland: FDA has approved an innovative T cell immunotherapy to treat a rare soft-tissue cancer called synovial sarcoma. The treatment, which is called Tecelra and developed by Adaptimmune Therapeutics, is a T cell receptor (TCR) therapy. TCR therapy involves removing a patient's cells, engineering their receptors to identify cancer antigens, and then returning the cells to the patients. In a clinical trial, around 40% of patients who received the treatment saw their tumors shrink, a much higher response rate compared to chemotherapies used in later treatments. Tecelra also had a longer durability of responses. FDA has granted Tecelra accelerated approval for use in patients with synovial sarcomas, a type of cancer that can form in muscles and ligaments. "The company's spent 16 years working on making this brand new modality of therapy a reality," said Adaptimmune CEO Adrian Rawcliffe. The list price for Tecelra is $727,000, and analysts have predicted peak sales of over $150 million. (Joseph, STAT+ [subscription required], 8/2)
• Massachusetts: Steward Health Care will close two of its hospitals in Massachusetts, Carney Hospital and Nashoba Valley Medical Center, by the end of the month. Steward will lay off 753 employees at Carney Hospital and 490 at Nashoba Valley, effective Aug. 31. In a statement, Steward said that "[t]he decision to close both Carney and Nashoba hospitals is one we deeply regret having to make." Steward, a for-profit healthcare chain, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in May and is currently working to auction off its hospitals and physician group, Stewardship Health. According to a spokesperson for Gov. Maura Healey (D), "irresponsible business tactics" from Steward and its CEO, Ralph de la Torre, led to the upcoming hospital closures. "These nurses and health care workers have come to work day after day amid all of this uncertainty and selflessly served their patients," said Karissa Hand, the governor's spokesperson. (Treffeisen, Boston.com, 8/5)

With the rapid growth in molecular diagnostics and targeted treatments, cancer providers are able to deliver increasingly precise therapies that improve outcomes and reduce toxicities. However, to realize the benefits of personalized medicine, cancer providers have to make investments in laboratory capabilities, clinical decision support, rapid learning systems, patient education, and clinician training. Use our top resources to help guide your personalized medicine strategy.