Cancer Survivors on How Immunotherapy Saved Their Lives and the Critical Need for Research Funding

During Cancer Immunotherapy Month, survivors with firsthand experience can speak to what immunotherapy treatment breakthroughs have made possible

WHO: Several patient advocates affiliated with the Cancer Research Institute are available to share their immunotherapy experiences:

WHAT: June is Cancer Immunotherapy Month, a recognition of one of medicine’s most consequential advances. Since 2011, the FDA has approved 156 immunotherapy drugs that work by training the body’s own immune system to find and destroy cancer cells. Real-world use of these therapies has climbed more than 20-fold, and today immunotherapy is a treatment option for more than 20 solid tumor types and five blood cancers.

Behind those numbers are real people who have had their lives saved by immunotherapy. The Cancer Research Institute is making several of them available for interviews: patients who faced advanced or historically hard-to-treat cancers, exhausted their standard options, and are alive today because of immunotherapy. Their stories show both how far the field has come and why the U.S. must continue funding cancer immunotherapy research.

Founded in 1953, the Cancer Research Institute is the world’s leading nonprofit organization dedicated exclusively to fueling the discovery and development of immunotherapies for all cancers. For more information, visit cancerresearch.org.

Cancer Immunotherapy: A New Era of Momentum