Brussels - The Anticancer Fund updated its strategic goals for the next five years. ‘Maximise our impact for the benefit of the patients’ is our motto.

For the period 2020-2025, the Anticancer Fund focuses on the benefit of cancer patients by supporting the clinical adoption of valuable treatment options that are neglected by other players in the field.

How are we doing that? We reformulated our mission, goals and objectives. Discover the summary of our strategic plan in this fact sheet.

Mission

The Anticancer Fund wants to expand treatment options for cancer patients.

Therefore we coordinate our activities in three pillars:

1. We involve in clinical research
2. We offer non-judgmental and evidence-based information to cancer patients
3. We engage in policy making

Over the years, our mission has evolved from twofold (1 and 2) to threefold. We realised that evidence on efficacy of new cancer treatments will NOT automatically result in practice change and consequently will NOT automatically reach the patients since there are political, regulatory and commercial barriers that need to be resolved by policy work.

Goals

We have three major goals, defined to accomplish our mission:

1. We want valuable treatments, not of interest to the pharma-industry, get evidenced and made accessible for patients.
2. We want to persuade other stakeholders to contribute to our vision.
3. We want to empower patients in ‘shared decision making’ with the help of personalised information.

To do so we need to maintain our patient focus in selecting and running the most promising projects. If we are convinced by the evidence and the people coordinating the project, we can take the risk and be the first to fund.

Objectives

We have formulated nine objectives that we will focus on in the next five years to achieve our goals:

1. Increase and rethink our funding options for independent research
2. Expand valuable treatment options in the most efficient way
3. Provide reliable information to cancer patients
4. Keep the focus on patients
5. Engage in policy work
6. Collaborate with others
7. Strengthen the organisation
8. Communicate effectively and openly
9. Raise funds

Examples

To illustrate our activities in our three main pillars, have a look at the three specific examples below of how we get things done.

1. How do we get involved in cancer research?

We are supporting a trial on retroperitoneal sarcoma, conducted by the European Organisation for Research and Treatment of Cancer (EORTC). We provide 700,000 euros to a randomised phase III study of chemotherapy followed by surgery, versus surgery alone. Retroperitoneal sarcoma is a very rare and aggressive tumour, with an actual overall survival between 60 to 70% at five years following surgery.

Read more about the trial here.

2. How do we give patients information?

We offer cancer patients a personalised service called My Cancer Navigator. More than 100 patients so far contacted the service with questions about their treatment. We give patients non-judgmental and evidence-based information about their type of cancer and treatment options.

Find out more about My Cancer Navigator here.

3. How do we engage in policy making?

The European Commission plans to invest 100 billion euros in research and innovation. It identified five mission areas for Horizon Europe, its framework programme starting in the beginning of 2021. One of the missions is cancer. We reached out to the European Commission and clearly communicated our goal of increasing the options for cancer treatment in Europa. We offered recommendations for the Cancer Mission Board as it paves the way for a much-anticipated European programme for cancer research.

Read our recommendations for the Cancer Mission Board here.

Our recommendations fall into two categories:

1. Increase and rethink funding options for independent research.
2. Create adequate infrastructure and foster cross-country collaboration.

Conclusion

“Private philanthropy has the freedom to think different, to do different and to make a difference”

The Anticancer Fund is in the first place a philanthropic organisation contributing to structural solutions for societal needs. Our strategic goals for 2020-2025 are in line with the “Philosophy of Philanthropy” as described by the Laura and John Arnold Foundation. In other words, the changes we introduce should be transformational, engaged, collaborative and strategic.