ASPEN, CO – July 5, 2016 /Press Release/ –– The future of medicine and health care delivery, the promise of cancer breakthroughs, and ethical issues regarding increasing organ donation by living donors were among the topics explored by leaders from the Mount Sinai Health System during the 2016 Aspen Ideas Festival held in Aspen, Colorado. Presented by the Aspen Institute and The Atlantic, the festival is unique in its dedication to the global exchange of ideas.

“What excites me the most about medicine in the short term is that we have learned about immunology and immunotherapy and how it is affecting cancer treatments. The breakthroughs have been remarkable,” said Kenneth L. Davis, MD, President and CEO of the Mount Sinai Health System. “We have seen amazing therapies, vaccines, and experimental therapies work to put people—who were once considered hopeless cases—into remission.”

In a panel discussion on “Cancer Breakthroughs: The Promise of New Treatments,” Steven Burakoff, MD, Director of The Tisch Cancer Institute at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, said, “Though President Nixon’s ‘War on Cancer’ was waged 45 years ago, we have begun to make progress in the last five to eight years. Through basic science research, we have learned to manipulate the immune system and use genome sequencing of cancer cells, which have allowed us to identify mutations in the DNA that we can target with drugs that in some cases can control the growth of cancer.”
Describing breakthroughs in personalized cancer treatment and patient success stories were experts from The Tisch Cancer Institute: Joshua Brody, MD, Director of the Lymphoma Immunotherapy Program; Matthew Galsky, MD, Director of Genitourinary Medical Oncology; and Ross L. Cagan, PhD, Director of the Center for Personalized Cancer Therapeutics.

As for other long-term goals in medicine, Dr. Davis said that he “looked forward to breakthroughs in neuroscience where drugs could be developed that could make a difference for patients.” He said, “With the help of imaging and genetic studies, we are now on the right track for developing drugs to treat Alzheimer’s disease. We now know that the changes that happen in the brain occur as early as 25 years preceding symptoms. That means that there is a marker that will allow us to begin therapies decades before one is symptomatic and that drugs can be targeted to slow the progression.”

During a “Deep Dive on Drug Prices” discussion, Dr. Davis said, “The question we have to consider is: What is the fair return of investment of developing a drug? What troubles me most about the high cost of new drugs to treat Hepatitis C, for example, is that instead of pricing them as a fair return on investment, the drug companies are pricing in terms of how much money they are going to save the health system down the line because we don’t have costs related to the patient.” He noted: “What happened to the social contract between drug companies, taxpayers, and the consumers whereby drugs would be priced so that people could afford them? The polio vaccine was very inexpensive. Imagine if we had priced the polio vaccine in terms of the savings in health care costs that would result? Many would not have been able to afford it.”

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