President Biden delivered his "Cancer Moonshot" address in the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum in Boston on Monday, discussing his goal of cutting the U.S. cancer death rate in half over the next quarter-century. This speech comes on the 60th anniversary of Kennedy's famous "moonshot speech" about his goal of putting a man on the moon.
In his speech, Biden announced Dr. Renee Wegrzyn as the inaugural Director of Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H), a new agency created to drive biomedical innovation. He also signed an executive order to launch a National Biotechnology and Biomanufacturing Initiative, an initiative to grow the strength and diversity of domestic biomanufacturing capacity. Biden also emphasized his efforts to lower prescription drug costs, including cancer drugs, through the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022.
The Cancer Moonshot was originally launched when Biden was vice president under the Obama administration. He relaunched the initiative in Feb. 2022 as president. It has been an initiative that the president has personally been invested in, especially after losing his son, Beau Biden to an aggressive form of brain cancer in 2015.
"Cancer does not discriminate," Biden said. "Beating cancer is something we can do together."