BOSTON, Sept 12 (Reuters) – President Joe Biden on Monday signed orders to pump more government dollars into the U.S. biotech industry as he pushed his initiative to create new treatments and reduce the death rate from cancer. Cancer “doesn’t care if you’re Republican or Democrat,” Biden said at the John F. Kennedy Library in Boston on the 60th anniversary of JFK’s “Moonshot” speech that urged Americans to lead space exploration. Biden drew a parallel between the former president’s goal of reaching the moon and his own goal of cutting cancer death rates in half over the next 25 years. read more “Today I’m setting a long-term goal for the Cancer Moonshot — to bring together American ingenuity, to engage like we did to get to the moon, but to actually cure cancers … once and for all,” Biden said. Sign up now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.comSign up He said the research could spark medical breakthroughs, including a vaccine to prevent cancer or a blood test that could detect cancer at an annual physical. The executive order allows the federal government to direct funding to use microbes and other biologically-derived resources to produce new foods, fertilizers and seeds, as well as to make mining operations more efficient, administration officials said. The order “directs the federal government to ensure that biotechnologies invented in the United States of America are manufactured in the United States of America,” Biden said. U.S. President Joe Biden speaks to the media before boarding Air Force One as it departs for Washington in New Castle, Delaware, U.S., September 11, 2022. REUTERS/Joshua Roberts/File Photo Bioengineering has been used to create cancer treatments, including those derived from plants or using engineered cells of the immune system. The White House did not provide details on how much money would be available, where it would come from or how it would be allocated. More details are expected at a White House summit on the issue on Wednesday. The US federal government is already a source of funds for biotechnology research and development (R&D) through the National Institutes of Health, the US Department of Agriculture and other agencies. Total US funding for R&D has declined as a percentage of gross domestic product since peaking in the 1950s, a trend that Biden has pledged to reverse. Potential applications range from biodiesel fuel made by Renewable Energy Group to COVID-19 vaccines made by Pfizer-BioNTech ( PFE.N ), ( 22UAy.DE ) or genetically modified seeds produced by Corteva Inc (CTVA.N). Biden also nominated Dr. Renee Wegrzyn, a longtime scientific advisor and who recently served at biotech company Ginkgo Bioworks Holdings Inc, ( DNA.N ) as the first director of the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health, a US government-run biomedical. research group. Biden’s son Beau died of brain cancer in 2015 at age 46, which the president said helps inform his passion for the project. Sign up now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.comSign up Reporting by Trevor Hunnicutt and Nandita Bose. Edited by Heather Timmons and Aurora Ellis Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
