Planning and Priorities
2020 Annual Report
Planning for a Future Without Cancer
The CPRIT Oversight Committee and staff use strategic and operational planning to identify near term and future opportunities to create and expedite innovation in cancer research and breakthroughs in cancer prevention. This sets the course for CPRIT’s activities year by year and over the next decade. The four components of CPRIT’s long-term vision for the agency and each of its three programs serve as our guide.
Decrease cancer in Texas
through prevention and translation of discoveries into treatments and cures
Focus on disparities
in cancer incidence, mortality, and access to care
Accelerate advancements
in the scientific understanding of cancer
Enhance life sciences infrastructure
in the state
Fiscal Year 2020 Program Priorities
The Oversight Committee adopted its fiscal year 2020 priorities for CPRIT’s academic research, product development research, and prevention programs at its November 28, 2018, meeting. These annual program priorities guide CPRIT’s requests for applications and the evaluation of grant proposals. In addition to priorities specific to each grant program, CPRIT’s three programs share overarching priorities that span the cancer continuum from discovery to delivery. Although the priorities serve as strategic areas of emphasis, they do not exclude funding innovative projects in areas outside of identified priorities.
Priorities Across CPRIT’s Programs
The best way to reduce the physical, emotional and financial burden of cancer is by preventing its occurrence and detecting it at is earliest stages. However, prevention and early detection efforts receive little funding relative to the amount devoted to curing advanced cancers.
Working together, each of CPRIT’s programs play a part in fulfilling this goal. Academic research discovers novel approaches to prevent and detect cancer early. Product development research provides new methods, diagnostics, imaging, and devices for early cancer detection. The prevention program puts these innovative approaches into practice.
Innovative cancer prevention efforts and treatments always start with an initial discovery. Grants from the federal government and foundations fund the basic research enabling these scientific discoveries. There is a lack of money to support the research and development activities necessary to translate initial discoveries into available therapies.
Opportunities for inter-program strategic investment by CPRIT include funding translational research that bridges the gap between basic research and product development, and between research on preventive measures and innovative technologies for early cancer detection. Funding these activities may also stimulate new public-private partnerships in Texas.
Texas has earned a reputation for cancer research superiority through a decade of unparalleled recruitment efforts bringing cancer scientists and clinicians, at all career levels, to academic institutions in Texas. Establishing Texas as a preeminent cancer research hub attracts industry interested in developing groundbreaking treatments.
CPRIT’s investments in early-stage product development activities support the expansion of Texas’ emerging life-science industry, generating jobs and economic activity. Educating and training health care professionals and supporting collaborative partnerships boosts the state’s capacity and infrastructure for coordinated cancer prevention activities, mobilizes available resources, and accelerates system changes.
Academic Research Program Priorities
Invest in core facilities
Support a broad range of innovative, investigator-initiated research projects
Childhood cancers
Hepatocellular cancer
Program Priority in Practice: Childhood Cancers
Seeing the results of prioritizing a research area requires years of concentrated effort. An example is CPRIT’s focus on childhood and adolescent cancers, an underfunded area historically, which CPRIT has prioritized since 2014. This is important because children are not just little adults - the types of cancers that develop in children are often different from adult cancers and are not linked to lifestyle or environmental risk factors.
Product Development Research Program Priorities
Program Priority in Practice: Stimulating Commercialization of Technologies Developed at Texas Institutions
CPRIT has invested in 17 companies developing landmark discoveries that originated at Texas institutions of higher education and medical centers. Working to commercialize the intellectual property spun out from university laboratories, these early-stage companies are on the forefront of innovation. Texas-based companies advancing Texas breakthroughs stimulates the life sciences pipeline across the state.
Source of Intellectual Property:
The University of Texas at Austin
Development of a novel drug known as pegzilarginase for treatment of multiple cancer types
Related Project(s)
DP140031
Source of Intellectual Property:
Baylor College of Medicine
Development of a novel T-cell therapy to safely treat severe viral infections in cancer patients after stem cell transplants
Related Project(s)
DP170043
Source of Intellectual Property:
The University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston
Development of a flexible surgical device for the treatment of cancerous lesions in the GI tract
Related Project(s)
RP101216
Source of Intellectual Property:
MD Anderson Cancer Center
Development of a novel antibody drug for the treatment of breast cancer, myelomas, and pancreatic cancer
Related Project(s)
DP200033
Source of Intellectual Property:
The University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center
Development of a first-in-class small molecule for the treatment of colorectal cancer
Related Project(s)
DP200056
Source of Intellectual Property:
MD Anderson Cancer Center
Development of an oncolytic adenovirus for treatment for malignant glioma
Related Project(s)
CP130013
Source of Intellectual Property:
The University of Texas at San Antonio
Development of a novel form of rapamycin to treat rare form of colorectal cancer known as Familial Adenomatous Polyposis (FAP)
Related Project(s)
DP190069
Source of Intellectual Property:
Texas A&M University
Formation of a process development laboratory to be a resource for emerging cancer drug discoveries
Related Project(s)
CP120038
Source of Intellectual Property:
MD Anderson Cancer Center
Development of a novel antibody drug active across immune “hot” and “cold” cancers
Related Project(s)
DP200094
Source of Intellectual Property:
MD Anderson Cancer Center
Development of a novel therapeutic to combat chemotherapy induced peripheral nephropathy (CIPN) and chemo brain
Related Project(s)
DP180048
Source of Intellectual Property:
The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio
Development of a liposomally encapsulated radiotherapeutic for the treatment of brain cancer
Related Project(s)
DP150021
Source of Intellectual Property:
The University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center
Source of Intellectual Property:
The University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center
Development of oral small molecule drug candidates targeting a variety of cancer types
Related Project(s)
R1009
Source of Intellectual Property:
MD Anderson Cancer Center; Texas A&M University
Development of a novel therapeutic to reduce the incidence of pneumonia in immunosuppressed cancer patients
Related Project(s)
CP120014
Source of Intellectual Property:
The University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center
Development of an integrated interior magnetic resonance imaging and medical linear accelerator system for radiation therapy
Related Project(s)
DP200046
Prevention Program Priorities
Program Priority in Practice: Underserved Populations
Cancer is an equal opportunity disease; it does not discriminate. However, those that fall within a certain demographic, geographic area, or genetic profile may have unequal cancer experiences and likelihood of survival. CPRIT prioritizes prevention projects that target historically underserved and minority populations.
Harris County’s medically underserved population represents a large portion of the county, which has one of the highest uninsured rates in the nation (28% versus 10% nationally.) Compounding this problem, immigrants and refugees living and working in Harris County face additional barriers to accessing prevention and quality health services that include linguistic isolation, insufficient health information, and a shortage of ethnically sensitive and culturally competent health facilities and outreach staff.
In 2010, CPRIT awarded a grant to the Community Network for Cancer Prevention (CNCP), a collaboration between Baylor College of Medicine, Harris Health System (the county’s safety-net provider) and other academic and community partners (PP100201). Founded to increase colorectal and cervical cancer screenings among Harris County’s medically underserved population, Baylor College of Medicine’s Dr. Maria Jibaja-Weiss leads the CPRIT-funded CNCP project.
One of the innovative strategies CNCP uses to provide linguistically and culturally targeted, entertainment-based cancer screening education to medically underserved residents is through its Theater Outreach Program. The program includes three theater troupes performing in African American, Hispanic, and Vietnamese medically underserved communities. These community theater performances are live and videotaped. CNCP broadcasts filmed monologues regarding the fecal immunochemical test (FIT) and Pap test for colorectal and cervical screenings on VieTV, the Vietnamese-language TV network broadcasting in Houston.
CNCP expanded its successful colorectal and cervical cancer screening efforts in 2014 with a second CPRIT grant (PP140028). By working with Harris Health System and other community partners over the past decade, CNCP has had a powerful impact on colorectal and cervical cancer screening rates among Harris County’s medically underserved population. Prior to the start of the first project in 2010, only 24% of age-eligible patients at Harris Health received a FIT for colorectal cancer screening and 29% received a Pap test for cervical cancer screening; the current rates are many times higher (69% and 78% in 2019, respectively). CNCP also achieved profound decreases in loss-to-follow-up among screen positive patients. In 2009 over 50% of patients with an abnormal FIT and 40% of patients with an abnormal Pap test did not receive the appropriate notification, referral, and scheduling of diagnostic testing; the loss-to-follow-up rate has dropped to <1% in 2019. Through additional CPRIT funding, CNCP has grown in scope to tackle breast cancer screening and diagnosis (PP130084), HPV vaccination (PP160079) and tobacco prevention (PP190051).
Looking Ahead
CPRIT’s $2.64 billion investment in 1,576 of the best ideas in cancer research, product development research, and prevention is building a vibrant life sciences ecosystem across the state. This groundbreaking work enhances Texas’ competitive edge in the global fight against cancer and is saving lives. From a foundation built through 10 years of steady investment, Texas can now expand into new life science opportunities. Setting the course for the next decade of work, CPRIT and its stakeholders have identified several preliminary initiatives for further development.
- Capitalize on CPRIT’s longstanding investments in improving outcomes in childhood cancer; with continued support, Texas can be the world leader in childhood cancer research
- Grow and enhance the coalitions and networks delivering cancer prevention services by providing infrastructure to support them
- Create and expand research and treatment capabilities at universities in all regions of the state
- Boost clinical trial options to more people by reducing the institutional and patient barriers to trials
- Increase the number and breadth of Collaborative Action Programs (CAPs) that target Texas-centric needs in cancer research and prevention.
- Stoke the pipeline of novel cancer diagnostic and treatment discoveries at Texas universities by supporting the transition of early-stage development in the growing number of Texas-based companies
- Double the number of NCI Designated Comprehensive Cancer Centers and elevate Texas institutions’ standing in prominent national reviews such as the US News and World Report’s rankings through continued investment in research capacity, access to cutting-edge technology, and recruiting preeminent experts and the next generation of scientific leaders to Texas
- Co-invest with established bio-tech venture capital firms in promising Texas-based companies, sharing the risks and rewards equally