Audra Moran
President & CEO, Ovarian Cancer Research Alliance
Ovarian cancer is the deadliest of the gynecologic cancers and yet it is one of the most underfunded cancers relative to burden on society. Nearly 22,000 U.S. women are diagnosed with it each year and approximately 14,000 will die from the disease.
Continued and increased medical research is imperative to ensuring better diagnostics and novel treatments.
Funding hope
Ovarian Cancer Research Alliance (OCRA) is the largest non-government funder of ovarian cancer research seeking to hasten progress to help women diagnosed with the disease. After decades of relying on the same treatment regimens, the last few years have seen exciting discoveries that have led to several new drugs and offered hope to many, demonstrating the strides scientists are making in their quest to stop ovarian cancer.
The successes of these new treatments in some women with ovarian cancer may point the way to new avenues to help even more women in the future, but there is still much work to be done. While these drugs have been successful at lengthening progression-free survival in some women, we must continue to seek treatments that will actually stop ovarian cancer in all women diagnosed with the disease.
A path to prevention
Every day, research funded by OCRA is illuminating new potential pathways toward prevention and a cure. There are many exciting new areas that hold great promise, such as implementing immunotherapy, identifying new relevant genes responsible for ovarian cancer, and combining existing classes of drugs to create more effective treatments. Science is incremental and, unfortunately, there are no shortcuts.
However, as technology and information-sharing increase, so do breakthroughs. OCRA is leading the fight against ovarian cancer with the goal of preventing and eventually eradicating the disease.
Until that time, we will continue to support women and their families who are going through an ovarian cancer diagnosis, while also funding the research that will one day lead to its prevention.
Audra Moran, President & CEO, Ovarian Cancer Research Alliance, [email protected]
