Winning the Cancer War: Start With the Deepest Intelligence

This is the first in a three-part series, “Winning the Cancer War,” by Patrick Soon-Shiong, MD, FRCS(C), FACS

In 2003, government agencies proclaimed we solved cancer because we solved the human genome. We thought we could halt cancer in its tracks by targeting mutations in our DNA and stopping those “cancer drivers.” This spurred the great genomics buildout over the last ten years. Hundreds of academic medical centers and companies began developing their own gene panels—everything from 40 DNA gene panel to 500 gene panels, from breast cancer panels to lung cancer panels, and everything in between—all in a tremendous race to treat cancer with targeted drugs.

Large pharma and biotechs joined the bandwagon. They invested billions of dollars and utilized insights from limited gene panels as the only counter-intelligence for the