Biden's Million Dollar Moonshot - $240 Million Is A Boon For Cancer Research, Will it be a Boost For Pharma Stocks Too?

In September, Biden unveiled a $240 million investment to combat cancer, augmenting the administration’s “Cancer Moonshot”, an initiative with an array of new health resources. 

The funding, allocated through the recently established Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H) will support researchers engaged in projects spanning cancer prevention, detection, treatment, and survival. These initiatives include endeavors to enhance early cancer detection, improve the visualization of cancer cells during surgery, and develop devices capable of delivering treatments directly to cancer cells for more effective tumor treatment.

Reflecting on the broad impact of the fight against cancer, Biden remarked, “Almost everywhere we go, whether it’s meeting with folks at local events or meeting with world leaders, beating cancer brings people together, no matter where you are.”

Biden revamped the Cancer Moonshot program, which started when he was in office as Vice President, last year with the goal of cutting the cancer death rate in half by 2047.

Additional Investment

The influx of money will drive innovations that will benefit not just those the treatments save, but the companies that develop and sell them too. Companies with promising treatments already in the pipeline may get the push they need to get life-saving drugs to market.

Investors can choose to back individual stocks or go with a thematic ETF like the Tema Oncology ETF CANC, which allows investors to help drive cancer research and benefit from the innovations it provides. The fund believes that oncology is at an inflection point and a burst of progress is on the horizon; progress that may be, in part, driven by the administration's cancer moonshot funding.

CANC is new, launched this summer, and has assets under management south of $20 million and an expense ratio of .75%. It's up more than 6% over the trailing month.