January 29, 2015
By Riley McDermid, BioSpace.com Breaking News Sr. Editor
A new online tool designed by Eli Lilly to help policymakers and anyone involved in cancer research chart progress against the disease debuted today, and will be a major step in fighting cancer worldwide, an executive with the company told BioSpace exclusively.
Gary L. Geipel, senior director for global oncology corporate affairs at Eli Lilly, said in an interview with BioSpace that the new Patient Access to Cancer Care Excellence Continuous Innovation Indicators (CII) tool announced Thursday will give the world’s its clearest picture of comprehensive cancer research yet.
“For the first time, the CII tool makes accessible—in one place—thousands of pieces of hard, peer-reviewed evidence depicting progress against a dozen different cancers to enable users to understand, for example, how combination treatments have evolved, where progress has clustered, and what policy changes could be implemented to advance progress in cancer care,” Geipel told BioSpace.
Launched on the eve of World Cancer Day 2015, and right in the middle of the ongoing pricing war over drug costs, PACE, a Lilly Oncology initiative now in its fourth year, developed the CII as the first, evidence-based, customizable online tool that makes it possible for anyone who makes decisions about cancer research and policy (including policymakers, health policy experts and patient advocates) to visualize progress against cancer over time.
Geipel told BioSpace that will help everyone involved gain a better understanding of how value in cancer treatment evolves, and how to consider policy reforms and other efforts to accelerate continuous innovation against cancer.
The tool does not offer clinical guidance, and is not meant to replace existing diagnostic or treatment guidelines publications or efforts by organizations that conduct assessments of the impact of cancer treatments, said Geipel.
Geipel said he and Eli Lilly are excited because the CII tool delivers on several fronts: It fills a need, it’s customizable and its received a lot of positive feedback.
“We have seen significant advances in cancer treatment over the last 40 years. In order to sustain and accelerate the momentum in the fight against cancer, we need a deeper understanding of the innovations that have occurred, to better identify solutions that sustain and accelerate future progress,” he said. “Until now, no tool existed to help key decision makers understand and measure the overall extent of historical progress in cancer care.”
The CII is also a first-of-its-kind tool that makes accessible—in one place—thousands of pieces of hard, peer-reviewed evidence depicting progress against initially 12 different cancers. To
“[That] enables users to understand, for example, how combination treatments have evolved, where progress has clustered, and what policy changes could be implemented to encourage progress in areas that have seen few steps forward,” Geipel told BioSpace.
In addition, it is customizable, making it a tool offers a layered interface capable of displaying a range of information, from high-level summary statistics to details at the individual study level.
“We received very positive feedback. Policymakers, healthcare professionals and advocates were very complimentary about the utility of the CII in various settings,” said Geipel. “These include opinion leaders from the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO), the Pancreatic Cancer Action Network (PanCan), Friends of Cancer Research, Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA), the National Cancer Institute (NCI) and the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR).”
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