The following is an excerpt of an article originally published in Forbes detailing Asia Society and Asia Society Policy Institute President Kevin Rudd's remarks at the 2022 Forbes Healthcare Summit. 

The Biden administration’s “Cancer Moonshot” launched in February is a laudable move to defeat one of the world’s worst scourges, yet more international collaboration is needed to make substantial progress, Asia Society Global President and CEO Kevin Rudd told the Forbes China Healthcare Summit on Saturday.

“Much of the Cancer Moonshot efforts have largely focused on domestic efforts and coordination between institutions, agencies, and public-private partnerships,” Rudd noted. “More international cooperation, especially between the U.S. and China, is critical to move the Moonshot to the next level to benefit the whole of humanity," Rudd said.

“There are relatively few international efforts, especially on clinical cancer trials, which will be the decisive step between scientific discovery and saving lives that we now need,” Rudd said.

One of the world’s worst diseases, cancer in its various forms kills 10 million people globally every year; more than 3.6 million of those are from China and the United States. Collaboration has helped fight back, Rudd noted.

“International trials have been key to accelerating the breakthroughs that we've seen so far and for the future,” he said. “During the Covid-19 pandemic, we saw the FDA approval of Lumakras, the first targeted drug against KRAS, the most common cancer driver gene that was deemed undruggable by scientists for 40 years. This approval affects up to 13% of patients with non-small cell lung cancers.

Read the full article in Forbes.