30-Day Your Cancer Game Plan Challenge Helps
Those Impacted by Cancer and the Patient Organizations That Support
Them
With an estimated 1.6 million Americans diagnosed in 2017 alone,
cancer not only impacts those diagnosed but their friends and
family as well. In recognition of World Cancer Day on Sunday, Feb.
4, Merck (NYSE: MRK), known as MSD outside the United States and
Canada, along with Pro Football Hall of Famer Jim Kelly is asking
all Americans to join the Your Cancer Game Plan
Challenge, a social awareness effort to help raise funds to
support cancer patient organizations. The 30-day effort kicked off
today as part of Your Cancer Game Plan, a comprehensive resource
from Merck and the cancer advocacy community, to help cancer
survivors and their loved ones manage the emotional, health and
communication challenges of a cancer journey.
This press release features multimedia. View
the full release here:
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“I know from personal experience that you can’t face a cancer
diagnosis alone and that you need access to information and
resources that can help you make a game plan to fight back,” said
Kelly. “For the next thirty days, when you share the Your Cancer
Game Plan website with your friends and family on social media, you
are not only providing a really helpful resource, but you also have
the opportunity to help raise money for patient organizations who
help people deal with cancer each and every day.”
To participate in the Challenge, Americans can visit
www.YourCancerGamePlan.com and share the resource – complete with
videos, recipes and communications tips – with their friends and
family through their social networks. Participants can choose their
favorite cancer advocacy organization to support, and for every
social share of the resource Merck will donate $5 to the selected
organization (up to a maximum of $200,000 total across all
participating groups). The Challenge will allow the cancer
community to continue education and support to help improve the
lives of people with cancer and their loved ones.
“At Merck, we recognize the incredible support that the patient
advocacy community provides to those affected by cancer, and we
want to do more to help them help others. From online resources to
in-person support groups and even more, these groups can often be
the most valuable players in a person’s cancer game plan,” said
Jill DeSimone, senior vice president, Merck Oncology, U.S.
Cancer advocacy groups who are participating in the Your Cancer
Game Plan Challenge, include AIM at Melanoma Foundation, Alive and
Kickn, Bladder Cancer Advocacy Network (BCAN), Bonnie J. Addario
Lung Cancer Foundation (ALCF), CancerCare, Cancer Research
Institute (CRI), Colorectal Cancer Alliance (CCA), Debbie’s Dream
Foundation, Fight Colorectal Cancer, Gastric Cancer Foundation,
Head and Neck Cancer Alliance (HNCA), Lung Cancer Alliance (LCA),
Lung Cancer Foundation of America (LCFA), Lung Cancer Research
Foundation (LCRF), Melanoma International Foundation (MIF),
Melanoma Research Alliance (MRA), Melanoma Research Foundation
(MRF), No Stomach For Cancer and Support for People with Oral and
Head and Neck Cancer (SPOHNC).
About Your Cancer Game Plan
Your Cancer Game Plan is a national awareness effort to help
people with cancer and their loved ones take an active role in
developing a “game plan” to support the emotional, health and
communication challenges of living with cancer.
Cancer survivors including Pro Football Hall of Famer and head
and neck cancer survivor Jim Kelly, Pro Baseball Hall of Famer and
melanoma survivor Mike Schmidt, and lung cancer survivor and
patient advocate Taylor Bell Duck have joined Your Cancer Game Plan
to share their stories and tools to help others affected by
cancer.
The new “Make Your Own Game Plan” feature allows people with
cancer and their loved ones to explore the program’s resources most
relevant to their personal experience with cancer, including videos
from cancer survivors, communication tips, coping strategies, and
health and nutritional information. Your Cancer Game Plan is a
partnership between Merck and the cancer advocacy community. To
learn more, visit www.YourCancerGamePlan.com.
About Jim Kelly
Jim Kelly began his professional football career in 1986,
following two years with the United States Football League’s
Houston Gamblers. During his 11 years with the Buffalo Bills, he
led the team to six AFC East Championships and four consecutive
championship appearances. Kelly holds the all-time professional
football record for most yards gained per completion in a single
game, and was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2002.
He became known for his motto: “You have to be ‘Kelly tough.’” This
motto, built on the importance of being physically and mentally
strong and able to bounce back from injuries, took on a new – and
more important – meaning after his cancer diagnosis.
Kelly was diagnosed with head and neck squamous cell cancer in
his upper jaw in 2013. He underwent surgery, but after a follow-up
test, Kelly found out the cancer had returned and he would need to
receive further treatment. Finally, in August 2014, doctors gave
Kelly the good news that they could no longer find evidence of
cancer.
Merck’s Focus on Cancer
Our goal is to translate breakthrough science into innovative
oncology medicines to help people with cancer worldwide. At Merck
Oncology, helping people fight cancer is our passion and supporting
accessibility to our cancer medicines is our commitment. Our focus
is on pursuing research in immuno-oncology and we are accelerating
every step in the journey – from lab to clinic – to potentially
bring new hope to people with cancer.
About Merck
For more than a century, Merck, a leading global
biopharmaceutical company known as MSD outside of the United States
and Canada, has been inventing for life, bringing forward medicines
and vaccines for many of the world’s most challenging diseases.
Through our prescription medicines, vaccines, biologic therapies
and animal health products, we work with customers and operate in
more than 140 countries to deliver innovative health solutions. We
also demonstrate our commitment to increasing access to health care
through far-reaching policies, programs and partnerships. Today,
Merck continues to be at the forefront of research to advance the
prevention and treatment of diseases that threaten people and
communities around the world - including cancer, cardio-metabolic
diseases, emerging animal diseases, Alzheimer’s disease and
infectious diseases including HIV and Ebola. For more information,
visit www.merck.com and connect with us on Twitter, Facebook,
Instagram, YouTube and LinkedIn.
Forward-Looking Statement of Merck & Co., Inc.,
Kenilworth, N.J., USA
This news release of Merck & Co., Inc., Kenilworth, N.J.,
USA (the "company") includes "forward-looking statements" within
the meaning of the safe harbor provisions of the U.S. Private
Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These statements are
based upon the current beliefs and expectations of the company's
management and are subject to significant risks and uncertainties.
If underlying assumptions prove inaccurate or risks or
uncertainties materialize, actual results may differ materially
from those set forth in the forward-looking statements.
Risks and uncertainties include but are not limited to, general
industry conditions and competition; general economic factors,
including interest rate and currency exchange rate fluctuations;
the impact of pharmaceutical industry regulation and health care
legislation in the United States and internationally; global trends
toward health care cost containment; technological advances, new
products and patents attained by competitors; challenges inherent
in new product development, including obtaining regulatory
approval; the company's ability to accurately predict future market
conditions; manufacturing difficulties or delays; financial
instability of international economies and sovereign risk;
dependence on the effectiveness of the company's patents and other
protections for innovative products; and the exposure to
litigation, including patent litigation, and/or regulatory
actions.
The company undertakes no obligation to publicly update any
forward-looking statement, whether as a result of new information,
future events or otherwise. Additional factors that could cause
results to differ materially from those described in the
forward-looking statements can be found in the company's 2016
Annual Report on Form 10-K and the company's other filings with the
Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) available at the SEC's
Internet site (www.sec.gov).
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MerckCourtney Ronaldo, 908-740-6132orChristiana Pascale,
212-257-6722
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