By Blood Cancer United
Finding better treatments and cures has been a foundational component of Blood Cancer United since the organization’s inception in 1949.
In fact, we are the world’s single largest nonprofit funder of blood cancer research—having invested more than $2 billion. We are constantly looking for groundbreaking, innovative, and necessary science that can help save, extend, and improve lives. And we’ll continue this support until we’ve fulfilled our vision: a world without blood cancer.
Blood Cancer United helps fund the science that makes FDA drug approvals possible, including 80% of the 153 new approvals between 2017 and 2024.
How blood cancer research funding “works”
If you’ve ever been curious about cancer research—how it’s funded or how we decide what to fund in the first place—this is for you.
We are not funded by the US government. Instead, our research funding continues largely because of personal donations from people, as well as corporate and in-kind donations from companies passionate about finding cures.
Blood Cancer United funds research through grants to both institutions and individual scientists, as well as through investments and partnerships with leading biotech companies. Hundreds of blood cancer and related research projects are currently underway with our support—studies that range from foundational research into how blood cancer starts and grows, to pioneering clinical trials leading to new drug approvals (we’ll get into that more later).
Because our staff scientists understand the research process so well, we are able to find and fund research that connects the dots from one research project to the next. This makes Blood Cancer United pivotal not just for funding the research, but also for recognizing promising science and getting it to patients faster.
How we decide what projects to fund
Led by our Chief Scientific Officer, Dr. Lore Gruenbaum, our expert team of blood cancer scientists annually evaluates proposals from researchers working in academia and biotechnology companies.
They look for innovative ideas and scientific rigor (ensuring robust, unbiased, and reproducible findings), including research that would benefit patients with every type of blood cancer (there are more than 100 different types!). They also consider projects that, if they succeed, are likely to secure the continued funding needed to progress through the extremely challenging clinical development process.
They get input from a panel of independent experts, renowned researchers themselves, who volunteer their time to review the proposals and provide their input to help us pick the best of the best.
Blood Cancer United funds research from bench to the bedside
Our strategy includes supporting scientific research from its earliest stages in laboratories (“the bench”) all the way to clinical trials (“the bedside”), where potential therapies are tested in people with blood cancer.
This approach helps get treatments that are close to being approved by the FDA across the finish line, while also supporting the foundational science that opens the doors to the next big discovery.
We fund the whole spectrum to keep the science moving nonstop so that there is never a lull. Everything from:
- Gathering insights into how blood cancers start and progress
- Discovering drugs to prevent, slow, or cure blood cancer
- Testing future new therapies in the laboratory
- Conducting clinical trials in patients
Rigorous scientific research is the only way to know whether a treatment works and how patients tolerate it. This takes a lot of money. It also takes a lot of time; 10 to 15 years or even more to move from an initial idea to an FDA-approved drug.
It all starts with preclinical research
This is a tricky phase of research. Many ideas need to be tested in laboratories to find the ones with the most promise. According to a study from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), of nearly 800 preclinical research projects from 1991 to 2015, just 32% made it past this phase. Those that do are the seeds that fuel long-term success.
For example: It was in this phase that our funding helped scientists discover that a protein called menin lives inside myeloid cancer cells. Then they figured out how that menin protein interacts with mutated genes to turn healthy cells into cancerous ones.
This was an extraordinary finding, but seeing the problem is just step one. Could they create a drug compound that could actually change the process?
With additional funding from Blood Cancer United, scientists developed and tested many potential drug compounds in the labs. It took years of painstaking work to find compounds that were effective—and safe enough to test for human use.
Decades-long, consistent funding through the National Institutes of Health (NIH) made academic medical centers in the United States the undisputed leader in this stage of research. Blood Cancer United has been there alongside NIH for 75+ years, helping to drive the best and brightest ideas. Today we are working hard to ensure consistent funding keeps flowing to dedicated scientists.
Clinical research is a long, meticulous, and essential process
After years of laboratory research, promising potential drugs are evaluated in humans.
Clinical research happens in three phases. Phase 1 assesses drug safety and can also begin to assess effectiveness in small numbers of patients. If phase 1 is successful, research moves to phase 2, which includes a larger number of patients to gather more evidence about the drug’s safety and effectiveness. Success means moving on to phase 3.
Phase 3 includes “gold standard” trials—the final phase before most treatments can be approved for public use. These are the largest, longest, and most costly trials in the entire process. They require a large number of participants to show definitively whether a new drug offers enough benefit compared to its potential risks to make it valuable for patients.
Blood Cancer United funding for clinical stage comes in the form of grants, but also investments through our Therapy Acceleration Program (TAP)®.
Therapy Acceleration Program® (TAP)
TAP is venture philanthropy, which means we make investments just like venture capitalists do. But we don't make the investments in order to make profits—we make them to accelerate the best new treatments for patients. The profits that come with an investment strategy driven by patients' needs and deep scientific insight can be significant and 100% of the profits go back into our mission—to drive the next promising therapy. To date, the return on investment for TAP-supported projects is approximately $113.5M.
Just recently, after decades of support from Blood Cancer United, including through grants and TAP, a new menin inhibitor was approved by the FDA. Ziftomenib (KOMZIFTI™) is a breakthrough for treatment of certain types of acute myeloid leukemia (AML), a difficult to treat and very aggressive blood cancer.
Blood Cancer United’s research grant portfolio
Blood Cancer United research grants are made through a variety of mechanisms, each designed to address specific parts of the scientific process and all helping to get us to better treatments and ultimately cures for blood cancer patients.
You can read more about Blood Cancer United academic grants, which open and close throughout the year, at these links:
- Student Mentorship and Research Training (SMART) Program gives medical students with an interest in blood cancer the chance to work in a blood cancer lab for a year
- Career Development Program (CDP) provides critical salary support to talented early to mid-career physicians and scientists
- Discovery Grant Program (DGP) focuses on research to understand how blood cancers work and identifying targets for treatment
- Translational Research Program (TRP) helps move research from bench (the lab) to bedside (the clinic)
- Academic Clinical Trials Program (ACT) supports clinical trials developed by academic researchers and focuses on clinical trials with impact on new and existing treatments that are unlikely to be funded by industry
- Influential Medicine Providing Access to Clinical Trials (IMPACT) funds critical infrastructure to move clinical trials closer to patients in their communities
- Specialized Center of Research Program (SCOR) brings together established investigators often representing different expertise across the research and clinical spectrum to collaborate and accelerate progress
We also announce special, disease-focused Requests for Proposal (RFP) regularly to accelerate research areas with high unmet needs.
Fund the best science. Change the meaning of a blood cancer diagnosis.
Because of Blood Cancer United, blood cancers that were once fatal are now treatable—and even curable. Since 1949, Blood Cancer United support has been instrumental in progressing most breakthroughs in blood cancer treatment.
We have a continuously deepening understanding of the root causes of blood cancers. We are learning more daily thanks to our rapidly accelerating ability to identify specific factors that can cause and drive cancers.
But we are also in the midst of an evolving conversation about how we fund research in the United States (primarily via NIH). In this time of uncertainly about ongoing research funding, our work at Blood Cancer United becomes even more urgent.
It takes all of us—researchers, volunteers, healthcare professionals, staff and partners, and of course, our generous donors and supporters—to make ongoing, widespread change.
If you feel inspired by the Mission, please consider getting involved through
volunteering, fundraising, donating, or becoming an advocate.
