As many scientists, physicians and patient advocates see it, the fight to understand and eradicate prostate cancer has become a quintessential “before and after” story: the slow pace of change before Wall Street powerhouse and philanthropist Michael Milken joined the fray in 1993, and the revolution in science that's happened ever since.
"Mike Milken, with his vision of the future, recognized that cancer was not just a scientific problem or a medical problem, but that it was an economic problem, a political problem, a cultural problem and a social problem, said urological surgeon Dr. Andrew von Eschenbach, former head of the U.S. National Cancer Institute and, more recently, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
In a profile article on Milken published in 2004, Fortune magazine wrote that “Milken has, in fact, turned the cancer establishment upside down. In the time it normally takes a big pharmaceutical company to bring a single new drug to market, Milken has managed to raise the profile of prostate cancer significantly, increase funding dramatically to fight the disease, spur innovative research, attract new people to the field, get myriad drugs into clinical trials, and dare we say, speed up science."
Indeed, statistics released last year by the Prostate Cancer Foundation (PCF) seem to bear that out. In 1993—the year Milken got his own diagnosis of advanced prostate cancer, which he has so far beaten—Forbes magazine called the disease “a research backwater.” However, galvanized by his diagnosis and by the sense that he could apply the same skills he had been using to lead the fight against other diseases for two decades to the business of beating prostate cancer, Milken amassed financial, social and scientific capital together under the PCF tent. Here are some of the results:
- PCF-led activism helped boost federal funding for prostate cancer research from $27 million in 1993 to $550 million by 2008;
- Where there were no promising drugs in the pipeline in 1993, over 30 such agents are under investigation today;
- Multiple tissue banks, containing more than 20,000 samples, are now in place where before there were none;
- 200 labs dedicated to prostate cancer research have sprouted up, compared to just three such labs in 1993;
- $20 million is now earmarked for research into the nutrition-prostate cancer connection, where no such funding existed before;
- Over 36,000 articles on prostate cancer were published in 2007 alone, compared to 2,500 such articles in 1993;
- Beyond Milken's personal contributions, the PCF has raised over $350 million from the public to support medical research.
But the best statistic of all lies in the number of lives saved. In 1993, over 40,000 American men died of prostate cancer. At the time, the death toll was expected to rise along with an aging population. However, by 2008 the number of deaths linked to the disease had fallen, to 28,000 annually.
Much of the credit for driving those numbers down must go to the PCF, which has provided more than 1,500 grants to medical investigators worldwide, making it the world's leading philanthropy for prostate cancer research.
And Milken, 62, has other irons in the fire. He founded the Milken Family Foundation in 1982 to support research on a wide range of diseases. He is also chairman of FasterCures (www.fastercures.org), a think tank based in the nation's capital that's dedicated to speeding the pace of medical research. He has also recently allied with leading experts to launch the Melanoma Research Alliance, to bring the same energy and expertise he brought to PCF to the fight against skin cancer.
Milken began his journey as a Wall Street pioneer in 1969, revolutionizing modern capital markets with Drexel Burnham Lambert. Almost simultaneously, he became involved in efforts to accelerate disease cures, an effort that grew when several relatives were diagnosed with cancer in the 1970s. His entrepreneurial zeal led to great success, but also to a well-publicized 22-month jail term, beginning in 1989, for what the government charged were securities/reporting violations.
However, after his prostate cancer diagnosis, treatment and recovery in the mid-1990s, Milken resumed his philanthropy and devoted much of his considerable energies to creating the PCF, which he described as "a Manhattan Project against cancer." His aim: to speed up the grant-application process and funnel much-needed funds to promising lines of research, and to support the careers of emerging young scientists.
As part of its mission, the PCF also mandates that individual research labs that receive its funding share their insights with the broader scientific community. This approach has quickly led to a fertile cross-pollination of ideas, revolutionizing the pace of cancer research.
"Michael is always thinking creatively," said one PCF grant recipient, Dr. Lee Hood, a renowned molecular biologist at the University of Washington. "He transformed how you do research in the field of prostate cancer and how you think about aggressively going after a disease."
Milken was also determined to bring prostate cancer – a disease men had long been reluctant to talk about – out into the open. In 1995, he leaned on high-powered friends such as (then) CNN chief Ted Turner to book the first high-profile, televised discussion of the illness, on Larry King Live.
That same year, the PCF helped convene a Cancer Summit in Washington advocating for more support against all cancers. By September 1998, over 150,000 people representing 600 cancer organizations were marching on the National Mall in Washington, DC—and another 300,000 in 200 cities across America—in the first national march against cancer, organized in large part by Milken and his allies in the cause.
The result: Over the next 5 years, a twofold increase in budgets allocated to both the National Institutes of Health and the NCI in the fight against cancer.
As well, the PCF each year convenes the best and brightest in medical research, the pharmaceutical industry and philanthropy at its annual Scientific Retreat on prostate cancer. "I had tears in my eyes the first time I went," said private sector researcher Dr. Julian Adams, who relied on PCF bridge funding to help develop the successful anticancer drug bortezimib (Velcade). The annual PCF Retreat "is like this think tank where you can meet all the right people," Adams said. "You can't help but feel the urgency and go back to the laboratory and work even harder."
And all that hard work is slowly paying off, Milken believes.
Testifying at a special Congressional hearing on prostate cancer back in 1999, he said he believes the real "after" – a world after prostate cancer – will arrive, and sooner rather than later. "I believe that we can accelerate science," Milken said. "If we give cancer researchers the same kinds of tools that technology companies employ in accelerating scientific development, we can find a cure faster. We have advanced people working on this inside and outside the government. Let's give them the tools and the incentives to finish the job."
For more information: www.mikemilken.com
