5 min reading time

I met a molecular biologist last week at BRINK 2015 (which was excellent). He’s turned his attention to oncology.

I paraphrase, but he basically asked if we knew any billionaires with cancer.

He wasn’t being elitist. Or looking to deny service to anyone.

No, he said a billionaire has the urgency and resources to fight cancer with the best experts in the world.

The billionaire won’t have access to just one institution (as most patients do) but an ENTIRE TEAM of oncologists, academics, researchers, and technologists to select the best choice for his specific cancer.

The wealthy patient’s doctor also could have tissue samples taken and analyzed before treatment.

My new friend believes this approach – analyzing cancerous tissue and making ALL available choices known to a patient – instead of depending on one or two well-meaning oncologists will yield significantly better outcomes.

He’d like to create a database of outcomes under “all options explored” conditions and compare them to “current standard of care” conditions.

He believes he’d be able to demonstrate results found working with the wealthy could eventually be applied (economically!) to those that can’t pay for similar treatment.

Which brings us back to his search for billionaires, because they will act with an urgency and depth not found in a typical agency. And if my friend collects enough “all options explored” data points, we might find a better way to treat deadly disease.

What do you think?

Can the brute force of a billionaire’s resources break through slower development bureaucracies? Will throwing money at a problem accelerate clearances through FDA, for example?

P.S. Another point he made: “Clinical trials are often insufficient to help the patients in the trial survive. A clinical trial typically helps FUTURE patients.”

Your thoughts?

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Make it a great week.

Joe Hage
Medical Devices Group Leader

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David P.
Founder at Engineering Medical Solutions
Warren Buffet was treated for prostate cancer. Prostate cancer effects 1/6 men so I’m sure there are more people out there. It then becomes more a matter of them getting the diagnosis and announcing it publicly.

Julie Omohundro
Principal Consultant at Class Three, LLC
Howard, that might depend on how much you enjoy being treated for cancer.

Howard Adamsky
Director of Talent Aquisition at Destination Weddings Travel Group
Bottom line to this is simple. If you have or get cancer, it is better to be a billionaire than to be poor.

Stella S.
CEO ACES™ (Armored Combat Equipment Systems™), Stellair® Trans Security Systems(S3)™ & Airline Marketing Strategies, Inc
What if I told you there was a PROVEN, natural way to reverse cancer by killing cancer cells and preventing new ones from taking ovrr in your body?

Mark Metzler
Silicon Valley Tours
Also, Andy Grove…

Mark Metzler
Silicon Valley Tours
Both Warren Buffet and Jamie Dimon have experienced cancer:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2014/07/02/warren-buffet-gets-cancer-stock-market-yawns-steve-jobs-gets-cancer-stock-market-yawns-jamie-dimon-well-see/

张永飞
商务主管，媒介主管
Me too,you can send me email”sales4@sunchineconsulting.com.cn

Mark Metzler
Silicon Valley Tours
Intel’s co-founder, Gordon Moore, was diagnosed with colon cancer….I believe….about 6 years ago, at age of 81. I know he is still living, and is able to travel. I might be able to give you advice on how to contact him.

Don Bogutski
President and CEO at Dx+
I thought of the Steve Jobs example as well. But, I think that the Jobs situation was an anomaly not a dis-proof of the statement. Anyone faced with the severity of cancer needs to learn quickly to avoid the traps of “the cancer treatment industry”, and chart their own course of treatment. The first lesson to learn is that cancer is not monolithic. Your cancer is not like anyone else’s cancer and should be approachedf as a unique situation.

David Lim
FDA Consultant Speaker | Drugs, Biologics, Medical Devices & IVDs, Combination Products, 483s, & FDA Inspection
Karl, in fact, by training, I was a scientist (molecular biologist) and identified a novel member of the transforming growth factor-beta superfamily for my Ph.D. I began my cancer research and then moved to anti-aging, patent prosecution, drugs/medical devices in areas of regulatory affairs/compliance, quality and clinical affairs. I had a similar thought 20 years ago using millionaires or rich women for (breast) cancer and diabetes, etc. One time, I even led a team for human genome sequencing project at California Institute of Technology, mapping genes specific for human diseases, etc. Now understanding and knowing how systems work for medical product development and bringing them to the market, we have to discern what is good, feasible, realistic, practical, doable, and meaningful with scientific and clinical utility. Then what would be required to make that happen?

Karl Schulmeisters
Principal and Founder at ExStreamVR
David I think you are on the money.

David Lim
FDA Consultant Speaker | Drugs, Biologics, Medical Devices & IVDs, Combination Products, 483s, & FDA Inspection
The question sounds, to some extent, as though “someone is seeking funding for cancer research.” In the US, there are a little over 400 billionaires. How many would have cancers? Then propose to create a database? Different approaches should be considered, certainly including billionaires.

Merrill Jackson, PE
Principal Reliability Engineer at Roche Tissue Diagnostics
I had never heard of alternative or homeopathic referred to as “personalized medicine”, perhaps is some circles it is. Where I work at Roche, “personalized medicine” means applying cutting edge science to determine an individual’s genetic make up and use that information to customize a treatment that will be best for them. For example, if you are diagnosed with cancer, you can use our tests to determine whether you personally happen to have the HER2 gene. If you do, then it is known that the drug Herceptin will be effective in treating your cancer. If you don’t have HER2, then it would not be effective. Giving a cancer patient a chemotherapy drug that does not affect the disease is clearly not in the interest of the patient. On the other hand, creating a cocktail of chemotherapy drugs that are all effective for that particular individual can dramatically improve the recovery from cancer. This is particularly important when you realize that often a tumor is not just one cancer. As the mutations take place, the character of the cancer continues to change. If you do not determine the character of all of the mutations within the tumor(s), there is a risk you will only treat some of them, and some may not be eliminated by the treatment.

Eli Romanova
Software Test Lead / Technical Program Manager at Verily Life Sciences
BS. Steve Jobs was billionaire with cancer…and vision and creativity. He is dead.

Karl Schulmeisters
Principal and Founder at ExStreamVR
feel free tto Google other sources…it’s been broadly documented.

Beth Ann Fiedler, PhD
Editor at Elsevier, Inc
@ karl. Thanks for the extended information. My point was not to identify his cancer, but speaking to other concerns that I hope are not lost. However, I have to indicate my concern regarding the source of your material which appears to be gawker.com. “Gawker is a United States Web blog founded by Nick Denton and Elizabeth Spiers and based in New York City. It promotes itself as the source for daily Manhattan media news and gossip”.

Camilo Andres Nieva Martinez
Coordinador Nacional de infraestructura y mantenimiento Clínicas CHRISTUS SINERGIA SALUD
So do I.

Howard Adamsky
Director of Talent Aquisition at Destination Weddings Travel Group
Fascinating information. I thank you.

Sophia Ish-Shalom
Consultant to reseach and development in the field of endocrinology and bone metabolism at Dr Ish-Shalom
Paul van Saarloos’ story and Steve Jobsare a good examples for the billionaires and others decision making process in case of cancer or any other serious health issue:
a. The billionaires often have a personal medical adviser that they trust, conventional or , very often alternative, homeopathic or other
b. They are usually insufficiently educated science wise to explore other scientific costly solution and will handle it with a total mistrust
c. It may be a good solution to approach educated wealthy people, not billionaires that can effort some of the search for a better diagnostic/ therapeutic solution

Paul van Saarloos
Medical Devices Professional
A friend – not wealthy, but a medical scientist – was diagnosed with cancer. His doctor advised a treatment and gave a 60% probably of being alive in 5 years. My friend searched the scientific and medical literature and worked out if another treatment option was added the treatment recommended by the doctor, then his chances of being alive in 5 years jumped to 99%. The doctor agreed to adding the second treatment, and so far all is good.
Perhaps it is not so much money, but access to and belief in the scientific knowledge we have today.