Moonshot Statement

Read Incubate Executive Director John Stanford's statement on President BIden's Moonshot initiative.

---

02.02.2022

Incubate Executive Director John Stanford made the following statement on President Biden’s Moonshot cancer initiative:

“We applaud the President’s recommitment to combatting the scourge of cancer, especially focusing the country on addressing racial disparities. Recent breakthroughs and strong investment of risk capital have transformed what it means to live with cancer in the United States, but too many cancers are without adequate treatment and far too many Americans lack easy access to screening. These are solvable problems, especially as hundreds of companies are working on the next generation of cancer treatments, and some day, a cure.

But the President’s words must align with his actions. Proposals to install price controls on the very medicines he hopes industry will create are barriers to this work. A new exclusivity scheme imagined in the Build Back Better Act sends the wrong signal to risktakers that success will be rewarded, and the impact of the BBBA drug pricing provisions will be disproportionately felt in the cancer ecosystem.

Private investment is critically important to this fight. We must end the misconception that a cure for cancer lies in a government lab. History has shown that it will be the private sector backed by private capital that will continue to drive breakthroughs.

We look forward to working with the President and his Administration on making his moonshot a reality, but urge everyone to recognize what we have said over and over: you cannot simply wish science to happen, but must incentivize the power of the entrepreneurial marketplace to run its course.”