Equity in action
2022-2027 Strategic Plan
Max creates solutions and overcomes obstacles for every patient, every day
Welcome Letter from CEO
Accelerating health equity has been The Max Foundation’s focus for over 25 years. Established to prevent other families from the devastation of losing a child to cancer, The Max Foundation is a bridge between patients and treatment, focusing on those no one else is helping and saving lives that would otherwise be lost. Three decades after our family had to emigrate from Latin America to the U.S. to seek treatment for our child Max, today most new and highly effective cancer treatments are still unavailable to patients in many countries. This is partly due to a broadly held, old-world belief that cancer cannot be treated in the developing world. At The Max Foundation, we do not accept this belief and as a result, we have extended thousands of patients’ lives. Since our founding, our focus has been on developing the systems needed to deliver lifesaving drugs safely and effectively to patients in low-and-middle-income countries, demonstrating that it can indeed be done. Our mission in the next five years is to change perceptions so it will no longer be acceptable to leave these patients behind. We have set our sights on an ambitious strategy to double our impact and treat thousands more patients, to expand partnerships across the global health sector, and to amplify our voice and influence. Geography must not dictate one’s destiny. All people should be able to face critical illness with dignity and hope. We can prevent unnecessary suffering and premature death and because we can, we must. As humanitarians and as leaders, we have a moral imperative to ensure access to safe, high-impact medicine for all patients now. We urge you to join us as we expand The Max Foundation’s lifesaving work around the globe.
Pat Garcia-Gonzalez
Chief Executive Officer of The Max Foundation
“Max is right in the middle of doctors, patients, and pharmaceutical companies. They are able to manage this triangle and keep everything in balance … and they do it amazingly, day in and day out.”
– Nirmesh Prakash, living with CML in India
Vision, mission, and beliefs
Our vision is a world where access to high-impact medicines is universal, where geography is not destiny, and where all people can strive for health with dignity and hope.
We are on a mission to accelerate health equity.
We do this by delivering medication, technology, and services to patients facing cancer and other critical illnesses, focusing our energy on those no one else is helping.
We are drive by a set of core beliefs
- We believe all human life has equal value, and all people facing illness deserve access to immediate and effective treatment no matter where they live.
- We believe achieving health equity requires a holistic approach and we work collaboratively at all levels, knowing the result is better for it.
- We believe progress requires dedication beyond the ordinary. We forge new pathways whenever necessary and are obsessed with overcoming any obstacle to save more lives.
- We believe we must develop innovative solutions. We aim to think ambitiously and to leverage novel technologies and approaches to improve outcomes for our patients.
Our Ecosystem
Our Approach
Our flagship program, Max Access Solutions, is a unique treatment access model that prioritizes individual patients’ needs with the sophistication and flexibility to fit local regulations. Through Max Access Solutions, we deliver medications to support patients living in low- and middle- income countries in partnership with their specialists and treating institutions.
Our programming also dramatically Strengthens Health Systems in the countries where we provide access to treatment. Beyond treatment, we increase diagnostic capacity, strengthen patient advocacy, provide clinical education, and support care and disease management.
Finally, to ensure positive health outcomes for patients, we focus on the Social Determinants of Health. On any given day, our global team provide patients across the world psychosocial support, transportation assistance, adherence monitoring, or a variety of other services to ensure that patients’ needs are handled individually and holistically.
Within each of these three programmatic areas, we are constantly developing new innovations to increase operational efficiency and further our impact. Our Max Innovation Lab serves as a platform for idea incubation, programmatic design and implementation. Often, our innovation lab pilots begin in a particular country or region and once the intended effect has been demonstrated and its value proven; the pilot is scaled globally.
“I was and still am a beneficiary of The Max Foundation. I was diagnosed with CML when I was a first-year resident. The lifesaving service Max provided was the inspiration that led me to study hematology and forever strive to pay the debt forward.”
– Dr. Fisihatsion Tadesse and his family Physician Partner, Ethiopia
2022-2027 Core Strategies & Goals
| Core Goals | Five-Year Metrics by 2027 we will… |
|---|---|
| Double the number of new patients we help each year | Treat an additional 25,000 newly diagnosed patients and provide an additional 50,000 molecular diagnostic tests |
| Double the number of diseases we support | Increase our portfolio to help patients afflicted with 20 diseases for which treatment is not accessible in their country |
| Double the number of donors in the Humanitarian Partnership for Access to Critical Treatment | Increase the size of our Humanitarian Partnership for Access to Critical Treatment to 10 donors |
| Expand geographically to provide targeted access where there is none today | Establish access programs in 10 new countries to increase our reach to 85 |
2022-2027 Key Priorities
Treat more patients
Priority 1: Invest in our regional teams and strengthen our local presence
Our regional teams are our greatest asset and facilitate all our patient programming across the globe. Over the next five years we will build on these already robust regional teams and expand our local capability through recruitment, training, and support. Our expansive network of physicians and partner institutions are part of these teams and we will increasingly supply them with enhanced information and tools.
Priority 2: Expand global programs to new countries
We plan to launch operations in 10 new countries to enable physicians to provide life-saving treatment to patients currently without access. This will require a new and expanded physician network capable of prescribing and supporting new treatments as well as relationships with new partner institutions around the world.
Amplify our voices
Priority 3: Amplify our patients’ voices
Access to life-saving medication and quality healthcare is a human right. The fact that some patients receive treatment for their illness while others are denied care is unjust and unacceptable. In the next five years, we will amplify patients’ voices and share their sense of urgency. Further, we plan to expand our research capacity so new knowledge can be generated for the betterment of all patients. We will speak out more forcefully, and in more high-profile settings, about the moral imperative we all share to ensure patient access to innovative, high-impact medicine worldwide.
Priority 4
Expand the impact of our programs on countries’ health systems
Our work in not simply Max Access Solutions. We witness the daily impact of our programming on the health systems of the countries in which we work. We plan to double down on this programming and scale up our work in diagnostics, physician support, patient education, data systems and sharing, global advocacy, and other vital strategies that improve the overall health systems we support. It is possible and sustainable to both address the urgent needs of patients and collaborate on health system strengthening around the world.
Sustain our work through robust partnerships
Priority 5: Expand our Humanitarian Partnership for Access to Critical Treatment (HPACT)
Expanding our current pharmaceutical collaborations is critical. It will enable us to expand our programming to treat more illnesses and serve more patients. It will also further promote a collaboration focused on ensure global access to all new medications.
Priority 6: Strengthen organizational and operational systems
We believe in maximizing the value we bring to patients through improved efficiency and expanded capacity. We are constantly working to ensure that our operational and programmatic costs facilitate the greatest care for patients in our programs. We will continue to pursue systematic improvements to our operational procedures, workforce development, training, and supply chain activities.
Geography should not be destiny.
Together we can prevent unnecessary suffering and premature death today.
