Pres­i­dent Joe Biden’s re­vival of the Can­cer Moon­shot ini­tia­tive now in­cludes a new Can­cer Cab­i­net, with some big ideas to make the goals of the Moon­shot fea­si­ble.

The White House’s so-called Can­cer Cab­i­net — a new en­ti­ty cre­at­ed when Biden re-ig­nit­ed the Can­cer Moon­shot in Feb­ru­ary 2022 — an­nounced spe­cif­ic “pri­or­i­ty ini­tia­tives” ear­li­er this week as part of the ini­tia­tive’s stat­ed goal of try­ing to cut can­cer fa­tal­i­ty by half in 25 years. The Cab­i­net, ac­cord­ing to the White House, in­cludes mul­ti­ple fed­er­al agen­cies, in­clud­ing the NCI, FDA, CDC, and NIH — and the re­cent­ly-added De­part­ments of La­bor and Com­merce, NASA and the White House Gen­der Pol­i­cy Coun­cil.

Orig­i­nal­ly start­ed in 2016, the moon­shot ini­tia­tive was born af­ter then-Vice Pres­i­dent Biden un­der the Oba­ma ad­min­is­tra­tion lost his son Beau to brain can­cer.

The Can­cer Cab­i­net out­lined the fol­low­ing pri­or­i­ty ac­tions, a White House state­ment said:

• im­prov­ing ac­cess to can­cer screen­ings, cit­ing that Amer­i­cans missed al­most 10 mil­lion can­cer screen­ings com­pared to pre­vi­ous years be­cause of the Covid-19 pan­dem­ic,
• ad­dress­ing en­vi­ron­men­tal and tox­ic ex­po­sures, as the White House point­ed out that cer­tain en­vi­ron­men­tal fac­tors can play a role in cer­tain types of can­cer,
• de­creas­ing the im­pact of pre­ventable can­cers through dif­fer­ent op­tions such as the HPV vac­cine and he­pati­tis C an­tivi­rals, and to
• “sup­port” the R&D pipeline for de­vel­op­ment and in­volve more pop­u­la­tions in clin­i­cal re­search.

Be­yond that, the USP­TO al­so an­nounced that it was ex­tend­ing its fast-track pro­gram for can­cer prod­ucts, which was first im­ple­ment­ed in June 2016 as part of the Can­cer Moon­shot. Ac­cord­ing to the White House, patent ap­pli­ca­tions re­lat­ed to can­cer im­munother­a­py are giv­en an ac­cel­er­at­ed re­view, cut­ting the re­view time in half.

On top of those goals from the Can­cer Cab­i­net, the White House al­so an­nounced Wednes­day that it is ap­point­ing three doc­tors on­to the ad­vi­so­ry Pres­i­dent’s Can­cer Pan­el: Eliz­a­beth Jaf­fee, Mitchel Berg­er and Car­ol Brown. Mem­bers are ap­point­ed to serve three-year terms.

Jaf­fee, a deputy di­rec­tor at Johns Hop­kins’ can­cer cen­ter, is a pre­vi­ous AACR pres­i­dent and will serve as the Pan­el’s chair. Mitchel Berg­er, on top of be­ing the di­rec­tor of the Brain Tu­mor Cen­ter, is al­so di­rec­tor of the Cen­ter for Neu­ro­log­i­cal In­jury and Re­pair. Car­ol Brown is a gy­ne­co­log­ic on­col­o­gist at Sloan Ket­ter­ing.

And as part of the now-re­vi­tal­ized Can­cer Moon­shot, the CDC re­cent­ly cut a $215 mil­lion check as part of a 5-year, $1.1 bil­lion grant to fund the first year of three na­tion­al pro­grams es­tab­lished in the 1990s to im­prove can­cer pre­ven­tion, de­tec­tion, di­ag­no­sis and con­trol in all 50 states, plus 18 trib­al or­ga­ni­za­tions and five ter­ri­to­ries.

The mRNA player Moderna is further cementing its presence on the African continent.

Moderna announced on Thursday that it has finalized an agreement with Kenya’s government to partner up and bring an mRNA manufacturing facility to the east African nation. The new facility aims to manufacture up to 500 million doses of vaccines annually. Moderna also said the new facility will have the ability to spike its production capabilities to respond to public health emergencies on the continent or globally.

Paul McKenzie took over as CEO of Australian pharma giant CSL this month, following in the footsteps of long-time CSL vet Paul Perreault.

With an eye on mRNA, and quickly commercializing its new, $3.5 million-per-shot gene therapy for hemophilia B, McKenzie and chief medical officer Bill Mezzanotte answered some questions from Endpoints News this afternoon about where McKenzie is going to take the company and what advances may be coming to market from CSL’s pipeline. Below is a lightly edited transcript.

ViiV Healthcare has teamed up with the UN-backed Medicines Patent Pool and three generic manufacturers to expand access to medicine that can prevent HIV.

ViiV and the Medicines Patent Pool jointly announced Thursday that the MPP signed sub-licensing agreements with Aurobindo, Cipla and Viatris to manufacture generics of a long-acting form of cabotegravir for HIV pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP). As a result of the agreement, the manufacturers will be able to develop, manufacture and supply generic versions of cabotegravir LA in 90 countries — subject to regulatory approvals.