2011: The Fast and Furious: Accelerating Scientific Breakthroughs

The wave of new prostate cancer treatments continues as the FDA approves Zytiga, a novel anti-androgen that puts more than 40% of men with Lupron-resistant disease back in remission.

Meanwhile, during the week following the annual PCF Scientific Retreat, key researchers join the Milken Institute’s Lake Tahoe Retreat on Bioscience Innovation.

“Accelerating Innovation in the Bioscience Revolution” – the official name of the Lake Tahoe Retreat – gathers 66 leaders from bioscience, government, philanthropy and academia along with several disruptive pioneers from other industries. The question they seek to answer: How can we save and extend more lives sooner by speeding up the medical innovation cycle?

One specific recommendation of the group will be passed by Congress and signed into law later that year: the new National Center for Advancing Translational Science (NCATS) at the NIH, which helps fund research across the so-called Valley of Death between basic and clinical phases.