- The Max Foundation to launch its Max Access Solutions
program for patients with HR+/HER2- advanced breast cancer in
collaboration with leading oncologists in LMICs and the ABC Global
Alliance, the American Society for Clinical Pathology, Cepheid, and
Novartis AG
- First patients to receive treatment in Bahamas, Benin, Bhutan, Haiti, Jamaica, Mozambique, Nepal, Saint
Lucia and Seychelles with
plans to expand to more countries in 2024
- Breast cancer is the leading cause of death for women
worldwide with 80% of patients in developing countries diagnosed at
the metastatic stage; patients in these settings face delayed
diagnosis and poor access to treatment and care
SEATTLE, June 1, 2023
/PRNewswire/ -- The Max Foundation (Max), a global non-profit
organization dedicated to accelerating health equity by delivering
medication, technology, and supportive services to cancer patients,
today announced the launch of its Max Access Solutions program to
deliver access to treatment for HR+/HER2- advanced breast cancer
patients in collaboration with leading oncologists in low and
middle-income countries.
Initially covering 9 countries across Africa, Latin
America, and South Asia,
areas of the world in most urgent need, The Max Foundation will
actively continue to expand treatment access in low to-middle
income countries (LMICs) with the focus on providing health care
providers the tools necessary to improve outcomes for women living
with advanced breast cancer. Max is working in collaboration with
multiple partners to implement the program through its Humanitarian
Partnership for Access to Cancer Treatment (Humanitarian PACT) for
Advanced Breast Cancer.
"We are excited and humbled at the opportunity to help address
the urgent needs of women diagnosed with advanced breast cancer in
low-resource countries at no cost to the patient," said
Pat Garcia-Gonzalez, CEO of The Max
Foundation. "There is a compelling unmet medical need and we are
grateful to our partners who share our deep commitment to improving
outcomes in the most common cancer impacting women in the
low-income world. Expanding our focus to include advanced breast
cancer strongly reflects our long-held mission to help those who no
one else is helping."
Partners in the Humanitarian PACT for Advanced Breast Cancer
have agreed to invest resources and/or their unique knowledge and
capabilities to support the expansion of Max Access Solutions to
provide access to treatment for HR+/HER2- advanced breast cancer.
Max Access Solutions is Max's innovative treatment access model
that harnesses the power of partnerships and prioritizes individual
patients' needs to improve outcomes for cancer in low-resource
healthcare settings. Close to than 45,000 people have received
access to treatment through Max Access Solutions, which now
operates in over 70 low-resource countries.
"The ABC Global Alliance is happy and proud to be partnering
with the Max Foundation in the Humanitarian Pact for Advanced
Breast Cancer. We will be providing training and
clinical/scientific advice to the leading oncologists in the
selected countries, to help with technical implementation of this
targeted treatment strategy for the most common breast cancer
subtype. This program will improve the survival and quality of life
of ABC patients, which are two of the goals of the ABC Global
Charter1 and in line with our vision and mission," said
Fatima Cardoso, President of the ABC
Global Alliance.
Participating physicians will initially have two Novartis
medicines available, ribociclib (Kisqali®) and letrozole
(Femara®) in combination, for post-menopausal women diagnosed
with HR+/HER2- advanced breast cancer. The Max Foundation continues
to seek additional partners to expand the portfolio of breast
cancer medicines available through the initiative.
Max and collaborating partners are investing in site readiness
by providing knowledge transfer and training, as well as
strengthening diagnostic capacity for some participating
institutions. Patients enrolled in the program will receive the
medication and support free of charge and be managed through the
Max Foundation's patient access tracking system. The system is a
real-time program management tool, developed in-house, accessed by
The Max Foundation's team, and treating physicians. It enables the
Max team to track each patient's treatment life cycle, including
any changes to a patient's medication, dosage, or diagnostic
needs.
Humanitarian Partnership for Access to Cancer
Treatment
The Humanitarian Partnership for Access to Cancer Treatments
(Humanitarian PACT) is a collaboration among professional,
nonprofit, and commercial organizations that share the commitment
of The Max Foundation to accelerate access to innovative medicines.
Founding partners of the Humanitarian PACT for Advanced Breast
Cancer include the ABC Global Alliance, the American Society
for Clinical Pathology, Cepheid, and Novartis AG. Novartis is a
member of the Humanitarian PACT through CancerPath to Care, an
access partnership between Max and Novartis that provides
innovative medicines free of charge to people living with certain
cancers in more than 70 lower-income countries.
Breast Cancer in LMICS
Breast cancer is the most common cancer in women with 25% of all
cancers diagnosed in women being breast cancer. Approximately 2.2
million cases occur each year worldwide with about 700,00 deaths
annually. An estimated 45% of newly diagnosed cases each year, and
more than 55% of breast cancer-related deaths occur in LMICs.
Managing breast cancer in low-resource countries poses unique
challenges including access to screening and timely diagnosis,
stage at presentation, adequacy of management, and availability of
therapeutic interventions. For example, routine pathology,
diagnostic exams, and standard breast cancer medicines are often
unavailable. Breast cancer is usually diagnosed at late stages, and
due to limited resources, patients with breast cancer may receive
inadequate treatment including supportive and palliative care.
About The Max Foundation
The Max Foundation (Max) is a global health nonprofit
organization dedicated to accelerating health equity. For 26 years,
Max has pioneered practical, scalable, high-quality solutions to
bring lifesaving treatments and patient-centered health care to
more than 100,000 people living with cancer and critical illness in
low- and middle-income countries. Max believes in a world where all
people can access high-impact medicines, where geography is not
destiny, and where everyone can strive for health with dignity and
with hope. Learn more at www.themaxfoundation.org
About the ABC Global Alliance
Established in 2016, the ABC Global Alliance originated as an
initiative of the European School of Oncology and was registered as
a non-profit association in Portugal in 2019. It is a multi-stakeholder
platform for all those interested in collaborating on common
projects relating to advanced breast cancer (ABC), aiming to
improve and extend the lives of women and men living with ABC
worldwide and to fight for a cure. It consists of more than 200
members across 93 countries. Learn more at:
www.abcglobalalliance.org
1
https://www.abcglobalalliance.org/abc-hub#global-charter
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SOURCE The Max Foundation