The Department of Biotechnology, Ministry of Science and Technology – GoI and the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, Autonomous Institute under Ministry of Health & Family Welfare – GoI, signed a Memorandum of Understanding for furtherance of Cancer Research taking into cognizance that cancer disease burden is fast reaching pandemic proportion in India. Their efforts will specially focus on cancers unique to India such as Gall-bladder, oral and cervical & Naso-pharyngeal cancer.
AIIMS, will be developing a National Cancer Institute at its upcoming Jhajjar Campus primary focus on cancer research in addition to patient care & management. The project, to be developed at a cost of about Rs. 2000 crore as sanctioned by the Ministry of Health in next 3-1/ years and is expected to be a big step in research in cancer in the country and would play a significant role in cancer treatment. So far, India has about 28 Regional Cancer Centres that mainly treats patients, However, research has not been a priority.