President Joe Biden yesterday declared a new Cancer Moonshot, with the goal of cutting cancer deaths in half in the next 25 years.

The event marked the 60th anniversary of President John F. Kennedy's famed Moonshot speech.

The president laid out a vision of cooperation between government, business and academia.

"To merge the public and the private sector together will only accelerate the benefits of cancer research and the outcomes we see in our daily lives," said Dr. Sajid Khan, surgical oncologist with Yale Medicine.

Khan says federal funding enables research that might seem too risky for private investment.

"The federal government is willing to take a chance on some of these projects that might have some risk to them, but with the hope that a lot of reward will come out of them," he said.

In March, $1 billion was set aside for a new Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health. Biden says ARPA-H will do for health care what the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency does for the military.

Researchers say one pandemic silver lining is greater international medical cooperation.

Biden also appointed a Cancer Cabinet of officials from different federal departments to head up his administration's response.