Current clinical guidelines for multiple cancers, including colon, prostate, and lung cancers, recommend biomarker testing to properly guide treatment decisions. However, utilization and efficiency of these tests remains uneven across the United States health system. Multiple factors including access, technological capabilities, turnaround times, and economic barriers prevent to optimal utilization of biomarker testing. The underuse of or delays in the turnaround time of key diagnostic tests prevents patients from receiving the best care.

Recognizing the opportunity to leverage new approaches, such as Artificial Intelligence (AI), to improve biomarker-driven care, Pfizer Global Medical Grants, working with Conquer Cancer’s EveryGrant, funded 8 new quality improvement grants through the “Improving Actionable Biomarker Testing Through Technology-Enabled Solutions” program, powered by EveryGrant.® The 8 grants totaling approximately $2 million focused on projects that leverage technology to identify and address the gaps actionable biomarker testing and therapy. For this opportunity, clinical investigators partnered with technology partners to develop proposals that combine rigorous quality improvement methodology with innovative technology with the ultimate goal of improving outcomes for patients.

This is the sixth grant program funded by Pfizer and developed by EveryGrant, an end-to-end grants management service by Conquer Cancer.  Designed specifically for the cancer community, EveryGrant acts as the liaison between researchers and grant programs. The first Pfizer supported program launched in 2021 and supported six research projects to identify and address disparities in the care metastatic breast cancer patients across the United States. Since then, the grant program was expanded on a global scale, including 9 grants in Latin America, 12 grants in Southeast Asia, and 12 grants in Sub-Saharan Africa. The current program, along with 6 grants funded through the “Optimizing the Experience of Patients with Bladder Cancer Through Multi-Disciplinary Care” program expand this model to other disease areas in the United States.  

To select the most impactful projects, Conquer Cancer assembled an external review panel of experts in colon, lung, and prostate cancer, as well as experts in the utilization of Electronic Health Records. This panel ensured that the 8 funded proposals met rigorous standards for patient impact, innovation, feasibility, and sustainability.

“Precision oncology depends not only on discovering biomarkers but on making sure they are consistently and efficiently used in everyday clinical practice. These funded projects reflect a forward looking approach that brings clinicians and technology innovators together to address real world barriers in biomarker driven care” said review committee chair Benjamin Gartrell, MD. “By integrating advanced analytics, artificial intelligence, and workflow based solutions into routine care delivery, this initiative has the potential to meaningfully improve outcomes for patients across multiple cancer types.”

Improving Actionable Biomarker Testing Through Technology-Enabled Solutions Awardees:

Nicholas Hornstein, MD, PhD
The Feinstein Institutes for Medical Research 
Manhasset, NY
“Integrating the LUCID Machine Learning Platform to Enable Real-Time Identification and Provider Prompts for Biomarker Testing in Metastatic Colorectal Cancer”

Sangwoo Kim, MD 
University of California, San Diego 
San Diego, CA
“Closing the HRR Testing Gap in Advanced Prostate Cancer Using EHR-Integrated Tools”

William Oh, MD 
Yale Cancer Center
New Haven, CT
“Optimizing Biomarker and Genomic Testing in Prostate Cancer: Identifying Gaps and Implementing Quality Improvement Solutions”

Shetal Patel, MD, PhD
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Chapel Hill, NC
“Improving Actionable Biomarker Testing Through Reflexive Large Language Model Based Review of Electronic Medical Records”

Brian Piening, PhD 
Providence Portland Medical Foundation 
Portland, OR
“Digital pathology AI mutation prediction to drive utilization of precision medicine”

Timothy Schieber, PharmD 
The University of Kansas Cancer Center
Lawrance, KS
“Advancing Precision Oncology Through Sustainable Reflex Genomic Testing: A Multi-Site Quality Improvement Initiative for ALK, Homologous Recombination Repair (HRR), and BRAF Mutations Across Missouri and Kansas”

Umit Tapan, MD
Boston University
Boston, MA
“A Marked Improvement: Expanding Biomarker Testing and Clinical Trial Access in Early-Stage Lung Cancer Care Through Quality Improvement”

Theodore Thomas, MD, MPHS
Veterans Research and Education Foundation of St. Louis 
St. Louis, MO
“Improving Pathway Concordant Biomarker Testing in Veterans with Colon, Lung and Prostate Cancer (VA-CLPs-Ca)”

Conquer Cancer EveryGrant inquiries: Contact Andrew.smith@conquer.org