About Us

Major accomplishments as Executive Director of KIDS V CANCER

2017: Nancy Goodman and Kids v Cancer are architects and champions of RACE for Children Act, which Congress passed into U.S. law in 2017 (21 U.S.C. 355c). The RACE for Children Act amends the Pediatric Research Equity Act to require companies developing cancer targeted therapies to undertake pediatric studies of those therapies. Before passage of the RACE Act, only a handful of novel cancer therapies were in pediatric cancer trials. Now, 80% of all new pediatric cancer clinical trials are of novel therapies pursuant to the RACE for Children Act.

2012: Nancy Goodman and Kids v Cancer are architects and champions Creating Hope Act Rare Pediatric Priority Review Voucher Program, which Congress passed into U.S. law in 2012 (21 U.S.C. 360ff). The priority review voucher program establishes a market-based incentive, a voucher, for companies to develop drugs expressly for children with cancer and other life-threatening illnesses. Some $2 billion in vouchers have been traded since the establishment of the program. Vouchers are currently trading for around $100 million each.

2021: Kids v Cancer is now asking Congress to pass the Give Kids a Chance Act, HR 5416.

Programs
2015: Kids v Cancer launched a Compassionate Use Navigator for pediatric cancer patients.
2010: Kids v Cancer launched a post mortem pediatric brain tumor tissue donation program

Honors

Selected Presentations 2020 Testimony before the Health Subcommittee of the Congressional House Energy and Commerce Committee on pediatric voucher program
2019 AACR Annual Meeting: Distinguished Advocate presentation
2019 Atlantic Live on Cancer
2018 The New England Journal of Medicine / TGen Pediatric Precision Oncology Conference 2018 FDA Public Meeting on Molecular Target List of RACE for Children Act
2018 American Association of Cancer Research Annual Meeting on RACE for Children Act 2018 AAADV Conference on RACE for Children Act
2018 Yale University: The Politics, Policy and Law of Cancer
2017 Atlantic Live on Childhood Cancer
2016 Testimony before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Hearing on Right to Try 2016 New York Academy of Sciences on compassionate use
2016 AAADV on pediatric drug development
2016 Broad Institute: Pediatric cancer drug development
2015 Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center: The Art of Medicine
2014 Food and Drug Administration Conference on Pediatric Cancer
2014 Congressional Rare Disease Caucus
2014 Congressional Roundtable of 21st Century Cures Initiative, Springfield, IL
2013 Congressional Childhood Cancer Caucus
2012 Congressional Childhood Cancer Caucus
2012 Congressional High Tech Caucus
2011 Congressional Childhood Cancer Caucus
2010 Congressional Childhood Cancer CaucusEducation

1991 University of Chicago Law School JD
1990-1991 Harvard Law School visiting student
1988 Harvard Kennedy School of Government MPP

Personal

Nancy Goodman lives in D.C. with her husband, Mike Froman, and her surviving children, Ben and Sarah. Her son, Jacob, died of medulloblastoma when he was 10. Nancy can be contacted via email at nancygoodman@kidsvcancer.org.

Jennifer Flynn

Outreach Director

Jenn is Director of Kids v Cancer’s  CLIMB THE HILL youth advocacy days, Youth Board, social media, events, and internship programs. Jenn unites advocates and empowers kids who are fighting cancer, their siblings and friends to make their voices heard. Jenn knew and loved Jacob from the time he was a very little boy until his death.

Jenn can be contacted via email at Jenn@kidsvcancer.org.

Elena Gerasimov

Program Director, Compassionate Use Navigator

Elena is Director of the Kids v Cancer the Compassionate Use Navigator program, which assists physicians and families with application process  for experimental drugs.  She authored the Saved Josh: The gears of a successful patient advocacy campaign, which documented the case of an 7-year-old boy’s struggle for a life-saving  experimental drug.  Elena holds an M.A. degree in journalism from American University and an MPH degree in maternal and child health from George Washington University. Elena has over 20 years of experience, having worked as a science and business journalist, as an epidemiological researcher, and program manager at the Johns Hopkins University and GW Center for Integrative Medicine.

Selected Publications

Donna Ludwinski, Vikas Kundra, Nancy Goodman, Leona Knox, Elena Gerasimov. The Other Side of the Bed: What Caregivers Can Learn from Listening to Patients and Their Families. In Philip A. Pizzo, David G. Poplack, Principles and Practice of Pediatric Oncology, 7^th ed. Wolters Kluwer, 2020.

Elena Gerasimov, Martha Donoghue, Josh Bilenker, Tanya Watt, Nancy Goodman, Theodore W. Laetsch. “Before It’s Too Late: Multistakeholder Perspectives on Compassionate Access to Investigational Drugs for Pediatric Patients With Cancer.” 2020 ASCO Educational Book www.asco.org/edbook

Moerdler S, Zhang L, Gerasimov E, Zhu C, Wolinsky T, Roth M, Goodman N, Weiser DA. “Physician perspectives on compassionate use in pediatric oncology”, Pediatric Blood and Cancer, 2019 Mar; 66(3):e27545.

Elena can be reached at Elena@kidsvcancer.org.