With a view to permit cancer patients access to potentially life-saving treatments, Lazarex Cancer Foundation‘s push for FDA issuing new FDA guidelines was taken into account by the Food and Drug administration thereby allowing accesss to potentially life-saving treatments.
Many cancer patients who fail standard treatment but are eligible for clinical trials offering potentially life-saving drugs must decide between living expenses and hope owing to the fact that Clinical trial sites are inconveniently located. Lazarex is the only organization in the country helping patients find clinical trials and reimbursing them for travel expenses, and has been working to create an even playing field so ALL patients have access.
Lazarex Founder Dana Dornsife claimed “If we don’t have fully enrolled clinical trials with a diverse pool of patients, a cure is not possible. Clinical trials are the pathway to new treatments. But when you have only 3% of cancer patients enrolling in clinical trials and about 50% of clinical trials failing because they can’t enroll enough patients, we have a broken system. That’s why Lazarex took this issue to the FDA. We are pleased the FDA has issued this guidance.”
The new guidance includes the following critical language:
“FDA does not consider reimbursement for travel expenses to and from the clinical trial site and associated costs such as airfare, parking, and lodging to raise issues regarding undue influence.”