NEW YORK (GenomeWeb) – The Prostate Cancer Foundation, a philanthropic organization funding and accelerating prostate cancer research, today announced it has signed a $50 million precision oncology agreement with the US Department of Veterans Affairs.
The partnership is intended to expand clinical research among veterans, and speed up the development of treatments and cures for prostate cancer, which is diagnosed in 12,000 vets each year.
"This agreement will open new doors for the research community to work with veterans facing a life-threatening disease and ultimately reduce the disease burden on America's veterans," said PCF President and CEO Jonathan Simons in a statement.
As part of the agreement, the VA will make data from its more than 9 million anonymized veterans' medical records available to researchers.
The partners plan to increase the number of VA investigators applying to PCF for funding, particularly early career scientists, as well as the number of VA facilities involved in precision medicine or prostate cancer clinical trials. They will also aim to raise the number of veterans enrolled in studies, and increase the number of veteran specimens and data used, while also boosting the number of minorities enrolled in PCF studies.
Further terms of the deal were not disclosed.