Clinical Research Funding Support in AML: What Is the Current Landscape?

Blood Cancers Today spoke with Mary-Elizabeth Percival, MD, MS, an associate professor in the Division of Hematology and Oncology at the University of Washington School of Medicine in Seattle. Dr. Percival is also an associate professor in the Clinical Research Division at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center, where she is a practicing hematologist-oncologist. As an attending physician and clinician researcher at Fred Hutchinson, Dr. Percival specializes in acute myeloid leukemia (AML) and high-grade myeloid neoplasms. There she conducts early-phase clinical trials to evaluate new drugs and agent combinations, as well as to perfect current management approaches. “Even for some of our best-treated diseases, for example with AML, we often have a chance of curing patients, but it’s still not as high a percentage of patients who are cured as we would like it to be. Oftentimes, our regimens are difficult to tolerate, so if there’s a way to improve those for patients, that is definitely an important goal,” Dr. Percival elaborated. She also described her work in retrospective studies, which hones nearly 20 years’ worth of data compiled from thousands of patients treated for AML at Fred Hutchinson, along with information from other clinical institutions’ patient databases. In this interview with Dr. Percival, which was conducted shortly before the release by the Trump administration of its fiscal year 2027 federal budget proposal, Blood Cancers Today inquired about the current financial landscape faced by clinical researchers in hematologic oncology. Dr. Percival expressed her and her colleagues’ concern about the deleterious effect major cuts to the NIH budget would have on the scientifically rigorous research that advances patient care. “I would hope that Congress will reject the cuts that we anticipate are going to be proposed and help protect NIH funding to continue to drive medical breakthroughs and save lives,” Dr. Percival said. Regarding her own clinical trial work in the current environment of constrained federal funding, Dr. Percival explained it has been able to continue, partly thanks to availability of financial and trial-execution support from alternate sources, such as pharmaceutical companies. “I also have, sometimes, had to rely on philanthropic support to help fund studies, which is a great resource to be able to have but not one that is necessarily sustainable or viable for many others,” Dr. Percival said, then highlighting the importance of NIH funding for many of her colleagues’ projects. ************ Blood Cancers Today is a new publication that provides hematologists and oncologists with news, education, and information relevant to their patients and practices, with insight from experts in the field. As the online home of the publication, bloodcancerstoday.com is updated daily, with the most current information from around the specialty and multimedia content, including exclusive interviews with presenters at major medical meetings. Blood Cancers Today was developed to reach all professionals in the hematology/oncology universe, covering the latest news and analysis in leukemia, lymphoma, myeloma, myeloproliferative neoplasms, and other hematologic malignancies.