Novartis, The Max Foundation, and a young girl who dreamed to be a lawyer
The Max Foundation and Novartis renew their commitment to CML patients
The Max Foundation is excited to include Graciela Mabel Woloj Rothstein and Mikkel Z. Oestergaard, PhD as the newest Strategic Innovation Advisory Board member.
Graciela Mabel Woloj Rothstein is an experienced leader with a demonstrated history of working within the pharmaceuticals industry. Rothstein brings her expertise in the fields of Oncology, Good Clinical Practice (GCP), Pharmacovigilance, Clinical Trial Management System (CTMS), and Biotechnology.
Dr. Mikkel Z Oestergaard is Director of Health Technology Assessment (HTA) Statistics within the Department of Biostatistics and Research Decision Sciences at Merck/MSD and is based in Zurich, Switzerland. He has 16 years of professional experience and more than 40 peer-reviewed scientific publications in the areas of clinical drug development, health statistics and evidence-generation for public health impact. Dr. Oestergaard previously worked at the World Health Organization (WHO) headquarter before subsequently moving to the pharmaceutical industry. At the WHO he focused on evaluation of the global burden of disease, and co-founded WHO’s Global Initiative on Genomics for Public Health.
We are eager to learn from Rothstein and Oestergaard’s knowledge and experience in the pharmaceutical industry, in order to bring more access to treatment for patients worldwide. Join us in welcoming Graciela Mabel Woloj Rothstein and Mikkel Z. Oestergaard, PhD to our advisory board!

The Max Foundation is a leading global health nonprofit organization dedicated to accelerating health equity. For 28 years, Max has pioneered practical, scalable, high-quality solutions to bring life-extending 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.

The Max Foundation is pleased to announce a significant expansion of its collaboration with Pfizer to provide access to some of Pfizer’s innovative oncology portfolio to patients in low- and middle-income countries, which otherwise would have limited local access. The latest agreement increases the total number of patients benefitting from the program from 270 to 500 patients and adds Inlyta® (axitinib) an oral medicine used to treat advanced kidney cancer.

Today, Spot On CML is active in 19 countries and, on June 29th, 17 patients were chosen by the treating physicians at Philippine General Hospital to take part in the program. While CML testing is available in the Philippines, it’s prohibitively expensive – placing critical diagnostic information out of reach for many patients.