The CEO programme was a really terrific opportunity to provide support directly to patient groups in low and middle income countries who have a real ambition to boost their advocacy in their home countries with governments and across society more broadly, but in a lot of cases lack some of the basic fundamentals in terms of funding and organisational capabilities to do that. What UICC brings, I think, is all of those elements in one package. Their capabilities in advocacy are well known and well regarded around the world and the CEO programme is a really important opportunity to bring those skills to them at something like this, the congress, where they’re going to be focussing on their plans for 2017.
How have you tackled the issue of cost?
The funding support for travel is important just at a basic level because so many of these groups have some real resource constraints. Like every advocacy group what they want to do is use those resources for direct advocacy as much as possible. So, the opportunity to cover some of the basic costs to get to an important opportunity to meet other groups, both advanced and just beginning in their lifetime ,is just a critical thing to do, and makes it possible.
What are your thoughts on the partnership between UICC and Merck?
What we’ve really learnt as a company who is relatively new to oncology is that cancer brings a unique complexity in terms of treatment and it’s equally complex in how to overcome the barriers to accessing better treatment. What we’ve learnt very quickly, and UICC has been a really important counsellor on this, is that initiatives need to target all elements of the treatment pathway including access to medicines which is where we’ve particularly got a responsibility. That’s going to feed ultimately into our approach to access in low and middle income countries in particular but probably across the board where the role we play becomes important within a continuum of care across the board that’s going to make a meaningful difference. What they have enabled us to do in a very short period of time is become familiar with the different aspects of advocacy around cancer treatment and the role we can play to contribute.
Any final thoughts?
What struck me about the World Cancer Congress, and this is my first congress that I have been able to attend, is just the richness and quality of the advocacy debate. I have been in five sessions so far, a couple of small ones, a couple of very large ones, where I’ve just been really struck by the level of detail, the thoughtfulness of the approaches of all the advocates who are here and I think what I take away from it is just a much better-informed view of what it’s going to take to improve access to cancer care.
