Mobilization of key research players

Since the creation of the charity, Imagine for Margo assembles performers in the research area in France and Europe in order to increase public and private research investments and accelerate the access of children to innovative and potentially more effective treatments.

 

REASONS TO MOBILIZE

  • The public and private investments in the research on pediatric cancers are strongly insufficient to increase the cure rate of children suffering from this disease, while the amount of pediatric cancer has increased of 13% between 1980 and 2000.
  • The majority of children diagnosed with cancer are treated with medicine initially dedicated to adults, thus not rightly adapted to children and with limited effectiveness. These were even proven to sometimes create long-term negative side effects for cured children.
  • Between 2011 and 2015, 70 new treatments against cancer were approved for adults, in comparison to solely 2 treatments for children.
  • In Europe, only 10% of children in cancer relapse have access to innovative treatments.

 

OUR GOALS

  • Increase the investments dedicated to the research on pediatric cancer
  • Decrease the delays of opening times for clinical trials to enable ill children to access innovative and possibly more efficient treatments more rapidly.
  • Improve the European Pediatric Regulation to enable manufacturers to develop their anti-cancer molecules in pediatrics and not only in adult oncology.
  • Make children cancer a PRIORITY FOR ALL.

 

OUR MEANS FOR MOBILIZATION

IN FRANCE

  • With the GRAVIR collective, created in July 2017 and reuniting health professionals, charities of patients and parents, foundations of cancer research and movements of citizen awareness. Its primary objective is to alert the public opinion and the various stakeholders on the urgency to act faster and better, both at a diagnostic and management level, as well as the treatment level and monitoring of children and young adult cancer.
  • With the IMPACT platform, which gathers diverse charities of parents, doctors and manufacturers to collaborate towards the cause of children cancer.
  • With the FAST symposium, which we organize every year since 2014 at the Luxembourg Palace and reunites all the key players of the research dedicated to children cancer.

IN EUROPE

  • With CII – Childhood Cancer International – the largest network of associations for children cancer worldwide.
  • With SIOPE– the European Society for Paediatric Oncology, the only organization pan-european representing all the health professionals working in the sector of children and teenage cancer.
  • With Unite2Cure, of which we are founding members and reunites various association of parents in Europe.
  • With ACCELERATE, a multidisciplinary platform which gathers academics, manufacturers, regulators and associations of parents.
  • With AACR, the American Association for Cancer Research, of which Patricia Blanc is a member.

THE 10 BEST FRENCH ADVANCES TO WHICH WE HAVE CONTRIBUTED :

  1. Pediatric cancers are now formally included in the new ten-year cancer strategy in France.
  2. Increase in the budget granted by the Parliament to research against childhood cancer.
  3. Vote of the law N° 2019-180 of Nathalie Evy-Elimas of March 8, 2019 aiming to strengthen the management of pediatric cancers through research, support for family caregivers, training of professionals and the right to be forgotten.
  4. INCa to set up a consortium on the causes and origins of childhood cancers.
  5. INCa set up the “High Risk High Gain” program to support research projects that are riskier but have a high potential for discovery.
  6. INCa set up a cross-functional program to share data on pediatric oncology.
  7. Implementation with the ANSM of an accelerated clinical trial authorization procedure (Fast Track) for innovative treatments.
  8. Increase from 310 to 620 continuous days of leave for parents of a child with cancer.
  9. Increase of the rights and flexibility in obtaining the daily parental presence allowance (AJPP).
  10. Co-founder of the GRAVIR collective and the IMPACT collective.

THE 10 MOST IMPORTANT EUROPEAN ADVANCES TO WHICH WE HAVE CONTRIBUTED:

  1. In 2020, the 1st European cancer plan includes a section dedicated to pediatrics and to improving the quality of life of cured children.
  2. In 2020, the Cancer mission led to 11 recommendations in terms of research and innovation, including one specifically dedicated to pediatrics.
  3. In 2020, a request from the European Commission to modify the regulation on pediatric drugs.
  4. In 10 years, 8 interventions by our president in the European Parliament to plead the cause of children.
  5. In 10 years, Imagine for Margo is co-author of 14 scientific research publications in prestigious journals (Lancet oncology, European Journal of cancer, ..).
  6. In 2019, our president joins the “Research and innovation” and “european public affairs” working groups of the CCI-Europe network of European associations to bring pediatrics to the top of the European agenda.
  7. In 2018, ACCELERATE, a new business model for investing in pediatrics, led to the creation of DAY ONE in the United States, a start-up dedicated to childhood cancer.
  8. In 2016, the European Parliament voted for a resolution to encourage laboratories to invest more in children’s cancers.
  9. In 2011, for the first time together, the players mobilized with a common goal: to accelerate the development of drugs for childhood and adolescent cancers.
  10. In 2015, the ACCELERATE platform was created, and later became a legal entity that now extends internationally.

 

Imagine for Margo discussed at the European Commission

Imagine for Margo discussed at the European Commission