Obama

U.S. President Barack Obama announced on Tuesday night a “new national effort” to find a cure for cancer.

In his final State of the Union address, Obama said he is putting Vice President Joe Biden in charge of the effort, which the latter called for after his 46-year-old son Beau died of brain cancer on May 30.

“Last year, Vice President Biden said that with a new moonshot, America can cure cancer. Last month, he worked with this Congress to give scientists at the National Institutes of Health the strongest resources they’ve had in over a decade,” he said. “Tonight, I’m announcing a new national effort to get it done.”

Obama did not give further details about the so-called “moonshot” plan.

On Monday, a group of U.S. pharmaceutical companies, academic cancer centres and community oncologists announced the launch of a programme called the Cancer MoonShot 2020, which is aimed at completing clinical trials for up to 20 tumour types in as many as 20,000 patients by 2020.