Astrazeneca has entered partnership with the International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer (IASLC), Guardant Health, the Global Lung Cancer Coalition (GLCC) named the Lung Ambition Alliance, to try to eliminate lung cancer as a cause of death, as it said Monday in a press release.
The world’s top tier drug-maker announced this bold mission noting that the first goal of the Alliance will be to double five-year survival for patients with lung cancer by 2025.
According to data referred to in a press release, AstraZeneca pointed out that every 18 seconds, a life is lost to lung cancer. In 2018 alone, approximately 1.8 million people died from the disease. Forty percent of patients are diagnosed when the cancer has already spread beyond the lung and their prognosis has worsened. Currently, only one in five lung cancer patients are alive five years after diagnosis, AstraZeneca noted.
Jesme Fox, Secretary for GLCC, said: “The Lung Ambition Alliance has been created at a pivotal time for lung cancer. Scientific advances are enabling new possibilities to transform diagnosis, treatment and the management of the disease.Yet barriers remain to improving and accelerating care. As members of the lung cancer community, we have a responsibility to come together with urgency to advocate for and advance the best solutions for patients.”