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This content is from UT Health San Antonio’s book, “Advancing Cancer Research for Latinos and All Populations: 2026 Conference Proceedings,” which highlights results of the same-named conference in February 2026.
BMS Global Representation and Health
Dr. Angelic Acevedo is a Clinical Development Lead for Oncology as a part of the Organization for Latino Achievement (OLA) People and Business Resource Group (PBRG) at Bristol Myers Squibb (BMS). BMS strives for innovation and outcomes for every community by emphasizing representative research and fair access to care. Representative research means advancing science that is accessible, validated, and effective for all communities. This type of research means building trial-ready communities by fostering clinical research education, awareness, and participation among medically underserved communities through collaboration with trusted members of the community. Depending on where and how the research is conducted, the trial approach must evolve. Site and patient burden should be mitigated by improving the geographic presence of clinical trial sites, considering barriers to eligibility, and capturing data to ensure accountability and transparency.
Fair access involves closing health gaps and enabling innovations to reach all who need them. Barriers specific to the therapeutic area of focus should be addressed by meeting patients where they are, improving access to screening, diagnosis, and treatment across the core pillars of multiple myeloma, lung cancer, neuroscience, and cardiovascular disease to improve patient outcomes. Access must also be expanded in middle- and low-income countries by designing and executing tailored programs to break down infrastructure and affordability barriers.
Improving Representation in Clinical Research: AIR® Is Needed Now More Than Ever
Meghan McKenzie is the Director in Population Science at Genentech. Disease pattern, clinical presentation, and therapeutic response can vary dramatically by race/ethnicity, ancestry, gender, and age. Therefore, advancing fair research via the AIR Site Alliance is important to scientific research. Genentech embeds AIR in research and provides full-time resources in order to broaden evidence generation and population insights, thereby improving medicine development for all patients and increasing participation in research studies. Pillars of this work include driving population science principles into development, assigning leadership advisors to development teams, setting industry standards, and leading strategic partnerships.
The Global AIR Site Alliance is a collaboration model that meets patients where they are, develops an ecosystem based on trust with committed leaders, builds and enhances operations performance, and advances scientific understanding. Site co-created content focuses on four approaches. The first is patient education such as educational animated videos, brochures, and postcards. The second is a physician education video series, with titles like Why Hispanic Representation Matters, Why Representation in Ophthalmology Matters, and a Healthcare Provider AIR Education Platform. The third approach focuses on patient support services, which is being piloted with Alliance Sites and is included in all US, UK, and Canadian study budgets. The fourth approach involves protocol design, including protocol simplification and more representative entry criteria recommendations. Find out more by reading about five data-informed principles for advancing representation in clinical trials from a pharma perspective here.
Gilead’s Commitment and Legacy
Dr. Sabrina Meyers is the Senior Director and Head of Community Oncology Strategy, and Community Cancer Collective (CCC) Lead at Gilead Sciences. The oncology pipeline at Gilead has been built to address unmet needs in cancer care, from antibody-drug conjugates and small molecules to cell therapy-based approaches. Over the last few years, Gilead has received 7 indication approvals, started 30 active clinical programs including 11 Phase 3 trials, and initiated 13 combination studies, including 4 combination trials in Phase 3.
The core values of integrity and fairness are key to ensuring that Gilead is a trusted and reliable partner in advancing the vision of creating a healthier world for all people. Commitment to cancer care extends to patients and providers by ensuring fair representation in clinical trial populations, investigators, and trial sites, and by building strategic partnerships to support advocacy. Gilead recognizes the practical challenges faced by oncology providers outside large academic centers, including limited time, constrained resources, and reduced access to innovative treatment.
The Community Cancer Collective (CCC) at Gilead originated over 2 years ago to support providers delivering cancer care in local practice environments. The CCC is a patient-focused, cross-functional initiative designed to improve care delivery by fostering collaboration across the oncology ecosystem. Three strategic pillars are foundational for the CCC: generating evidence to bridge clinical research and real-world practice, improving healthcare access and outcomes, and enabling education for patients and providers.
Revolution Medicines
Dr. Jesse Garcia is a Director at Revolution Medicines, a late-stage clinical oncology company developing novel targeted therapies for patients with RAS-addicted cancers.
Targeting RAS(ON) has been a central focus of Revolution Medicines’ research and development efforts. The company’s investigational compounds are based on a tri-complex inhibitor platform and include multi-selective and mutant-selective RAS(ON) inhibitors being evaluated across RAS-driven cancers.
Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) is among the most RAS-addicted major cancers, with more than 90% of tumors harboring RAS mutations. Patients with metastatic PDAC, particularly in the second-line or later setting, continue to face a significant need for new treatment options.
From SIGNAL to Strategies: Leveraging tumor-informed ctDNA to Eliminate Healthcare Disparities
Dr. Angel Rodriguez is Senior Medical Director of Oncology at Natera. Since causes of cancer disparities are multi-dimensional, the solutions must be as well. Early detection of recurrence is especially important in minority populations, which typically present with higher tumor burden and experience either lack or delayed initiation of systemic therapy. A patient-specific shared decision strategy of circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA)-molecular residual disease (MRD) deployment for surveillance and treatment response monitoring can address some of the well-known factors associated with disparities, and should be considered and prioritized in clinical studies. Natera has initiated a prospective multi-institutional single-arm study, called SIgnatera-Guided INitiation of Adjuvant CDK4/6 inhibitor in Intermediate-Risk ER+/HER2- Breast Cancer (SIGNAL ER 101), to explore this approach.
Although diagnostics and therapeutics are rapidly evolving fields, guideline incorporation is slow. The therapeutic landscape for metastatic cancer has expanded with the development of new treatments such as immunotherapies, targeted therapies, antibody-drug conjugates (ADCs), and novel hormone therapies. However, access to these advances and timely delivery are often not equal across the population. Novel and more precise diagnostic technologies have emerged and have the potential to either narrow or widen the gap in healthcare outcomes. Clinical deployment of ctDNA-MRD is selective and not yet widely adopted, therefore guidelines for its use should be carefully framed to narrow gaps in health outcomes.
AstraZeneca
Paris Johnson is a site engagement lead at AstraZeneca, focused on improving participation in oncology clinical trials. AstraZeneca’s goal in clinical trial enrollment is to ensure that innovation in oncology reaches patients across geographies, backgrounds, demographics, and lived experiences. Precision treatment for cancer patients can address individuals in a way that is specific to their needs. Precision engagement can do the same for engaging specific populations by addressing access, representative enrollment, and operational acceptance.
AstraZeneca is focused on creating tools and frameworks to ensure biomarker testing is widely distributed across populations, so that patient care can be improved through biomarker-driven strategies. Decentralized trials are a part of this approach, as well as the integration of patient insights into trial design. Offering trial materials in multiple languages and dialects is also helpful for enrollment variety. Execution of these strategies allows AstraZeneca to monitor, intervene, adjust, and scale trials in a thoughtful manner. At the core of the work is the patient, and the understanding that when site burden is reduced, patient burden is reduced. Precision without access is not precise, and precision without acknowledgment of population differences is incomplete. Sponsors, site leads, local leaders, and regional organizations must work in concert to enable precision medicine and precision engagement.
By The Numbers
142
Percent
Expected rise in Latino cancer cases in coming years
