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n e w h a v e n b i z . c o m | F e b r u a r y 2 0 2 2 | n e w h a v e n B I Z 13 Lending businesses money is one thing. Lending customized support is our thing. chelseagroton.com/growthatbusiness or call 860-448-4295 NMLS #402928 print ad print ad Looking for a commercial lender who's as committed as you? At GE Credit Union, we have a suite of solutions that will work for you so you can get down to business. • Vehicle purchase and refinancing • Commercial real estate lending • Great rates and flexible terms We are GE Credit Union. Committed to New Haven. Committed to your business. EQUAL OPPORTUNITY LENDER. FEDERALLY INSURED BY NCUA. myGECreditUnion.com 800.992.8472 395 Whalley Ave., New Haven Mon–Fri, 8:30–4:00 • Sat 8:30–noon ogy clinical trials. e goal is simple, yet ambitious: "build and support an international- ly-recognized clinical research pro- gram," Winer said when he hired Krop. Improving patient care will also be a focus, Winer said. Challenges facing patient care in the near future include the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, which has caused a steep decline in cancer screen- ing and preventative programs. Cancer screenings dropped by be- tween 86% and 94% in the first months of the pandemic and the National Cancer Institute predicts almost 10,000 excess deaths over the next decade from breast and colorectal cancer alone due to delays in screening and care, accord- ing to a ProPublica report. "People didn't stop getting cancer because there's a pandemic happening, they just didn't get care," said Matt Sturm, leader of oncology services for ECG, a national healthcare consulting firm. Other challenges As an industry, cancer centers like Yale's face two overarching trends that will challenge them in coming decades. First, "the rate at which science is evolving is more rapid than in any other discipline in medicine," Sturm said. Second, keeping up with that science is expensive and the cost of care is ballooning to pay for new drugs and technology. e cost of cancer drugs alone in the U.S. reached $71 billion in 2020, with Medicare estimating that a third of its cancer expenditures are for drugs, ac- cording to Global Oncology Trends 2021. "Cancer care is becoming much more expensive moving forward," Sturm said. "at's driving a lot of the other system- ic changes within the industry as it tries to respond." As a result, payers are putting pres- sure on cancer centers to maximize the value of care and cut programs and services that aren't making the grade. As for innovation, Yale's strength in immuno-oncology positions it well for a future of personalized cancer care, in which treatments like CAR T-cell therapy, which uses a patient's T cells to attack cancer cells, become a standard of care. "Academic centers — the Yales, the Memorial Sloan Ketterings, the Da- na-Farbers — they are literally creating the science," Sturm said. "ose are the places to go, the latest therapy is only available at these places." Costs drive consolidation, expansion High costs in general are impacting cancer centers as a sector, Sturm said, driving some consolidation in the industry as weaker centers bow out. "Costs are increasing, the cost of providing care is increasing and the revenue from Medicare or other sources is not growing at the same pace," Sturm said. "e margin that the centers have to live off of is com- pressing." In one major development in De- cember, nonprofit hospital system City of Hope announced it would buy Can- cer Treatment Centers of America for $390 million. e deal would expand the reach of the Los Angeles-based system across three states. Expansion may be the key to thriv- ing in the wake of the pandemic as patients increasingly seek convenient care in non-hospital settings. Yale Cancer Center already operates outposts of Smilow in 14 locations across the state, and another in West- erly, Rhode Island. Efforts last year to expand Smilow in Greenwich were rebuffed by neighbors due to traffic concerns, but Cynthia Sparer, senior vice president for ambulatory services at Yale New Haven Health, said the system planned continued expansion of cancer care in Fairfield County. Offering cancer care outside of the main hospital is also a crucial ap- proach to expanding access to care and addressing health disparities, Winer said. "We have to think about how we deliver care, taking the expertise of big centers and allowing people to get care more conveniently, closer to home," Winer said. With therapies improving, the key to better care and higher survival rates for cancer is increasingly about getting treatments to those who need it, he added. "We're going to realize the way we drive down cancer mortality is making sure cancer care is available to every- one," Winer said. "ere is a much greater awareness of the need to reach out to the community and to make sure that everybody in New Haven and surrounding areas has access to the same cancer care." n Dr. Eric Winer was a top breast cancer specialist at Boston's Dana-Farber Cancer Institute before taking the job of director of the Yale Cancer Center. PHOTO | CONTRIBUTED

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